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With the Uttar Pradesh government starting to acquire land at four nodes, the much-touted UP Defence Industrial Corridor project has got off the ground.
Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the UP Investors’ Summit in February 2018, the defence infrastructure corridor is estimated to attract investments of Rs 20,000 crore in the arid Bundelkhand region and generate employment for 2.5 lakh people.
According to Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), the nodal agency for the defence manufacturing corridor, land for the flagship project is being acquired in two phases.
“Almost 3,788 hectares of land is to be acquired across four nodes as part of Phase I, out of which over 1,455 hectares has been identified in Jhansi, Kanpur, Chitrakoot and Aligarh. Of this, around 1,200 hectares has already been acquired, mainly in Jhansi, Aligarh and Chitrakoot,” said a UPEIDA official.
While Lucknow, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Aligarh, Kanpur and Agra were proposed as the six nodes of the defence industrial corridor project, the interest it has evoked saw the UP government notify another three nodes for investment — Meerut, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar.
The project is being implemented in Bundelkhand given the availability of cheap land and the existence of a strong ancillary base in the region. It is one of the two defence manufacturing corridors being built to meet the modernisation needs of the Indian armed forces, with the second one coming up in Tamil Nadu.
“It would promote indigenisation and support the Make |In India initiative, helping meet equipment requirements worth over $250 billion by 2025. It would also promote ancillarisation and development of MSMEs for the aerospace & defence (A&D) sector, making UP a preferred destination for the purpose and boosting India’s defence exports,” the UPEIDA official said.
At the recently concluded DefExpo 2020 in Lucknow, 23 companies signed MoUs worth Rs 50,000 crore with the state government for investment in the defence manufacturing corridor. At the event, Ancor Research Labs became the first investor in the corridor, being allotted 25 acres of land in the Aligarh node to create high-end defence testing facilities and manufacture defence grade communication systems.
Recently, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the project would serve as a springboard for the state turning into a $1-trillion economy by 2024, as the government had proposed.
“The government would soon create a land bank of 25,000 acres to facilitate setting up of industries on the corridor,” the chief minister said.
“UP’s aim is to become a net exporter; even if half of the MoUs signed at the DefExpo are realised, we will be able to generate employment for 2.5 lakh people,” he said.
Among the investment avenues on the corridor are defence parks at Jhansi, Agra and Kanpur; aerospace parks at Lucknow, Kanpur and Agra; leather and textile hubs at Agra; and engineering/electronics manufacturing hubs at Agra, Kanpur, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad.
To attract investors, the UP government has offered major incentives in its Defence & Aerospace Policy 2018, including reimbursement of 25 per cent of land cost, transportation subsidy and reimbursement of 75 per cent of the cost of technology transfer to anchor units.
It has roped in IIT-BHU and IIT-Kanpur as knowledge partners to conduct research and help train manpower for industrial units in the defence sector.