Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has hailed the announcement of two defence industrial production corridors that would be developed in the country.
Presenting the Union budget for 2018-19, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the government will focus on the creation of these industrial corridors to boost investments in the production of defence armaments.
"These are the first ever defence production corridors being formed in the country. These defence industry corridors will give a big boost to defence production in the country," said Sitharaman.
While divulging details on the road ahead, Sitharaman said that the first one would be built connecting Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru in Karnataka. She further said that an announcement on the second corridor would be made soon.
Jaitley in his budget speech has announced various steps for promotion of defence production including measures to develop two defence industrial corridors and bringing out an industry friendly defence production policy 2018 to promote domestic production by public sector, private sector and MSMEs.
According to officials, the department of defence production had recently conducted a major Defence Industries Development Meet in Chennai in January with huge participation from defence industries, including MSME from Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, Salem, Tiruchirappalli and from other states as well. The meet highlighted the prevailing ecosystem, albeit scattered, conducive for defence production in Tamil Nadu.
"The announcement has paved the way for setting up the first defence production corridor in Tamil Nadu. This shall provide impetus to the defence production industry in the country and in the region, in particular," Sitharaman said.
It is notable that the Narendra Modi-led government has taken several measures to boost the Make in India to overcome armed forces dependence of exports of military hardware. Last year, Strategic Partnership (SP) model was included in the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) with an intention to give suitable plateform to the defence manufacturing in the country.
