Uttar Pradesh: Defence Corridor Progresses At Brisk Pace With 22 MoUs Worth Rs 1,566 Crore Soon To Be Operational

The Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor (UPDC) project announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2018 at the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Investors Summit is progressing at a rapid pace.

The UP Defence Corridor is being established at six places in the state - Jhansi, Kanpur, Aligarh, Agra, Lucknow and Chitrakoot.

Located in the arid Bundelkhand region, the infrastructure corridor is expected to attract investments of Rs 20,000 crore and create employment for 2.5 lakh people.

Bundelkhand was chosen because of the availability of land and the existence of a strong ancillary base in the region.

When Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath presented the 2020-21 budget, he said the project would help the state become a $1-trillion economy by 2024.

With the incentives given by UPEIDA, which include a 20 per cent discount on land, good location and connectivity to Delhi-NCR, as on 7 April, out of the total 67 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) inked with defence manufacturing companies, 22 have materialised so far.

“A total 22 MoUs have been finalised for land allotment. An estimated proposed investment of Rs 1,566 crore is expected when these companies will become operational,” said Colonel (retired) K.S. Tyagi, senior defence advisor in UPEIDA .

“We have allotted all land on the Aligarh node, where investment worth Rs 1,500 crore is happening. We have started the land allotment process in Kanpur and Jhansi nodes as well,” said Awanish Awasthi, state home secretary and CEO, UPEIDA.

Also three big names — Tata Technologies, a subsidiary of French aerospace company Dassault Aviation, and Siemens — have lined up to invest for setting up the Common Facilitation Centre (CFC) in Lucknow, which will be a state-of-the-art, technology driven centre for design.

The Indian Navy too has signed an MoU with the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) to initiate a Naval Technology Acceleration Council and a Technology Development Acceleration Cell (TDA).