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Bundelkhand Defence Corridor: UP to organise event for investors in Kanpur

Yogi government to showcase 275 de-licensed defence wares for private manufacturing

CM Adityanath
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addresses a press conference on completion of four years of Narendra Modi government at the Centre, at the party office in Lucknow on Saturday | Photo: PTI
Virendra Singh Rawat Lucknow
Last Updated : Sep 01 2018 | 1:25 AM IST
To give a fillip to the Bundelkhand defence corridor and encourage private companies to set up shop there, the state government is organising a mega event in Kanpur next month to showcase the de-licensed defence wares for private sector manufacturing.

Earlier, the Centre had de-licensed 275 defence-related wares and encouraged domestic private sector manufacturers to supply them to the forces by competing with public sector undertakings (PSU).

The PSUs had enjoyed monopoly over these products which are to the tune of billions of rupees. These items are dubbed ‘non-core items’ of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). Now, such procurement does not require a no-objection certificate (NoC) by the OFB. 

For procuring these wares, the army can float tenders, in which OFB can also participate apart from interested private firms.

UP industries development minister Satish Mahana told Business Standard that the Kanpur show would bring together defence PSUs and private companies to a single platform for knowledge sharing, apart from showcasing the entire range of de-licensed defence inventory now open for private manufacturing.

Senior officials of the three wings of defence forces and defence PSUs will also participate in the show, the dates of which would soon be announced, the minister added.

Events related to the proposed defence corridor had recently been organised in Jhansi and Aligarh in which defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath were present. However, the Kanpur show is touted to be the biggest so far in this respect.

Kanpur defence exhibition and buyer-seller meet was actually proposed to be held in July. However, owing to other big-ticket events, visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to UP and preparation for the monsoon session of the state legislature, it was postponed.

Meanwhile, Mahana said the state had identified 3,000 hectares of land for the corridor, which has been projected to attract direct investment of Rs 200 billion and generate 2,50,000 jobs.

The Bundelkhand defence corridor was announced by Modi after inaugurating the UP Investors Summit 2018 on February 21 in Lucknow. It spans six districts viz. Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Chitrakoot. Another such corridor is coming up in Tamil Nadu, which has already taken some lead in collaborating with a few private manufacturers.

Earlier, the Centre had announced that it will invest nearly Rs 30 billion in the proposed Bundelkhand defence corridor. The central investment will be made towards creating necessary infrastructure, such as ammunition blast testing centre. 

Meanwhile, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) has been engaged by UP to establish a Centre of Excellence for the Bundelkhand defence corridor. The proposed facility entails an investment of Rs 3.65 billion.

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