UP Military Hardware industry ‘gunning for glory’

Lucknow / June 29, 2021

Amid the border tensions with China and uneasy geopolitical equation with Pakistan, the domestic military hardware manufacturing industry has launched its first regional chapter in Uttar Pradesh, signifying the importance of the state in supplementing India’s future defence requirements.

The Society of Indian Defence Manufactures (SIDM) in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has launched its first state chapter for Defence in UP. Lucknow-based PTC Industries managing director Sachin Agarwal has been anointed the first chairman of UP Chapter of SIDM.

UP and Tamil Nadu are the only two states, where Defence Manufacturing Corridor projects have been awarded by the Centre, and are being expedited to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of attaining self-reliance in military hardware for preserving our future territorial security, considering India currently ranks among the world’s top defence ware importers, which entails a huge annual import bill.

Since, UP is in the vicinity of both China and Pakistan vis-à-vis TN, the former is considered of much higher strategic and logistical advantage in promoting the domestic defence hardware industry supply chain. Not only import substitution, but India is looking at catering the humongous global military and defence industry in times to come.

Meanwhile, UP Chapter will focus on promoting indigenous manufacturing in the defence and aerospace sectors.

“It aims to create awareness about defence requirements and various sectoral central and state policy schemes, and encourage capable companies in UP to participate in design, development and manufacturing of defence equipment and systems,” Agarwal noted.

He underlined UP offered a bouquet of subsidies, policy and fiscal incentives as well as assistance for businesses in the industrial and services landscape. “The UP Corridor is an aspirational project that intends to reduce foreign dependency of military materials.”

Meanwhile, SIDM president Jayant D Patil said the Indian defence industry has witnessed catalytic changes in the past 5 years through progressive reforms undertaken by the Centre.

“These reforms have been marked by the creation of a conducive environment for the growth of industry through transparency, predictability and instituting several measures for ‘Ease of Doing Business’. The reforms also encourage foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to set up manufacturing units in India, develop technology collaborations with Indian industries and make India their export base to feed global supply chains,” he added.

The UP Defence Manufacturing Corridor spans six nodes viz. Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi, Aligarh, Agra and Chitrakoot districts, wherein  nearly 5,000 hectares are expected to be acquired for development of Common Facility Centres (CFC) and allotment to public and private sector companies to set up their manufacturing units, several of which will come up under joint venture with foreign majors.

Last year, Indian Navy had signed an agreement with the UP nodal agency, UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), for setting up a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in the UP Corridor to promote research and innovation in the defence sector.

The UP government has launched various policy initiatives to boost defence and allied manufacturing, such as UP Defence & Aerospace Unit and Employment Promotion Policy, 2019 and Guidelines, 2020; UP Start-up Policy, 2020; Industrial Investment and Employment Promotion Policy 2017; UP Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Promotion Policy 2017; UP Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2020 and Post Covid-19 Accelerated Investment Promotion Policy.

UPEIDA CEO and UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi informed the state is now in the process of setting up of CFCs which will aid in research, training, product design and development and testing.

So far, more than 1,382 hectares of land at Aligarh, Kanpur, Jhansi and Chitrakoot nodes has been acquired and the process of acquiring land at Lucknow was underway. The defence node land at Aligarh has already been allotted and additional land is being identified, he said.

(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow based journalist, who writes on contemporary issues of industry, economy, agriculture, infrastructure, budget etc)