 "Chhattisgarh forays into defence manufacturing")
Mineral-rich Chhattisgarh will foray into the defence manufacturing sector and have the first unit in the state for assembling unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) commonly known as drones.
The state government on Friday inked a memorandum of understanding with Bharat Drones, a subsidiary of the New Delhi-based ACSG that serves security sensitive sectors. The company has entered into a new space of UAVs drones. India is an emerging market for UAV drones, which would be required by the defence forces and security agencies.
“The company would be investing Rs 30 crore on the project,” a senior industry department official said. The place where the unit would be finalized soon, he said, adding that the industry to come up in the state would be assembly the UAV. The other details related to the project were awaited.
The state government had been taking keen interest to invite defence manufacturing companies for setting up unit. During the visit of Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar last month, Chhattisgarh Chief Raman Singh gave a presentation informing about the potential in the state for setting up industries related to defence production.
The Defence Minister had assured that he would seriously look into the matter. The senior state government officials present in the meeting informed the defence minister that about 600 acres of land had been identified in Rajnandgaon district for Defence production-related industries.
The state government is slowly shifting its focus from the core sector comprising units related to steel, power, aluminium, cement production. Singh had said the state had achieved the saturation point in terms of investment in the core sector and hence had been focusing on non-core sector.
Two more Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed today to draw an investment of Rs 170 crore in the food processing sector. The Kolkata-based Crystal Logistics Cool chain limited and Agrizone Biotechnologies Pvt Limited would be the two companies that would be setting up food processing plants in Chhattisgarh.