UP govt plans to speed up over 100 defence projects worth ₹23,000 crore

The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC) is a crucial element in the attempt to make India more self-reliant in the defence sector

The Uttar Pradesh government is planning on speeding up over a 100 defence and military-ware projects worth ₹23,000 crore, in a bid to boost defence manufacturing in the state. 

 

These 110 projects cover different categories of defence hardware such as drones, arms, ammunition, missiles, propellant systems, parachutes, and defence textiles. 

 

The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC), which spans six nodes (Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi, Aligarh, Agra and Chitrakoot), is a crucial element in the attempt to make India more self-reliant in the defence sector. 

 

So far, the nodal agency UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) has signed 197 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with leading defence and aerospace companies for setting up production units in the UPDIC nodes.

 

Major investors in the UPDIC include Adani Defence and Aerospace, BrahMos Aerospace, Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Tata Technologies and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Lucknow-based BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between the DRDO and Russia’s NPOM to develop next-generation supersonic missiles. 

 

Around 62 UPDIC projects have so far been allotted 977 hectares of land. These projects involve investments of almost ₹12,000 crore. Together with the additional 110 projects worth ₹23,000 in the pipeline, the UPDIC has amassed investment proposals to the tune of ₹35,000 crore with the potential of creating over 52,000 jobs. 

 

Meanwhile, UPEIDA has approved 2,100 hectares of land across the six nodes, while 1,600 hectares are currently available for allotment to industry. Aligarh tops with the allotment of land to maximum 24 companies while Kanpur ranks first in total land allotment of 210 hectares allocated to five companies.