For Defence Corridors, The Centre Expects ₹20,000 Crore Investment

The Rajya Sabha was told on Monday that the government has set up two defense industrial corridors (DICs) to bring in investments worth 20,000 crore for defense industries by 2024-25, improve the domestic supply chain, and strengthen the ecosystem for defense manufacturing in the country.

In a written answer, Ajay Bhatt, minister of state for defense, said, “There are six nodes in the Uttar Pradesh Defense Industrial Corridor (UPDIC): Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Chitrakoot, and Lucknow.”

He also said that there are five nodes in the Tamil Nadu Defense Industrial Corridor (TNDIC): Chennai, Hosur, Coimbatore, Salem, and Tiruchirappalli.

The UPDIC is run by the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), and the TNDIC is run by the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). Both states have put out their own aerospace and defense policies in order to get people to invest in DICs.

According to the information that is available, 108 memorandums of understanding (MoU) have been signed with industries and organizations in UPDIC. These MoUs could lead to investments of 12,191 crore. An investment of ₹2,445 crore has been made and 1611 hectares of land have been acquired so far for the development of the UPDIC.

MoUs and other agreements have been made with 53 industries in Tamil Nadu for a possible investment of 11,794 crore. So far, the TNDIC has received investments totaling 3,894 crore and 910 hectares of land have been bought.

The DICs have been set up to build a complete ecosystem for defense manufacturing, which is an ongoing process.