Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated India’s second defense industrial corridor on January 20, 2019 in Tiruchirappalli. The corridor is said to provide links to military manufacturing units in five cities of South India – Chennai, Hosur, Coimbatore, Salem and Tiruchirappalli. The major step taken forward is to boost indigenous production of defense equipment and to increase in the quality of output from the small, micro and medium enterprises (MSME) under the Make in India scheme.
A look at past
The Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, in his
Budget speech on February 2, 2018, had announced that two defense industrial
production corridors will be set up in the country to promote domestic industry
base.
The government had foreseen building corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil
Nadu. So, the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor was launched at
Aligarh on August 11, 2018 with announced investments worth Rs 3,732 crore.
Highlights:
During inauguration, investments worth around Rs 3,038 crore were announced for the particular defense project.
A majority of the investments are to come from public sector undertakings (PSUs) as Ordnance Factory Board, Bharat Electronics Limited and Bharat Dynamics Limited have pledged to invest Rs 2305 crore, Rs 140.5 crore and Rs 150 crore respectively.
Private
companies such as TVS, Data Patterns and Alpha Designs have also committed to
make investments worth Rs 50 crore, Rs 75 crore and Rs 100 crore
respectively.
Lockheed Martin, one of the global giants, also announced its intention to
invest for the corridor.
Smt. Sitharam unveiled six defense commodities
that include OE Pods, Trichy Assault Rifles and Arjun Tank 1A both, at the
function and inauguration in nation’s first Defense Innovation Hub at Kovai
through video conferencing.
