LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath government has been asked to speed up the ambitious UP Defence Corridor project, especially, the land acquisition exercise. The corridor is expected to come up over nearly 5,000 hectares across six nodes -- Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Kanpur, and Lucknow.
So far, the state government is reported to have acquired over 1,300 hectares of land across different nodes for the Rs 20,000 crore project. Moreover, different manufacturing projects totalling a proposed investment worth Rs 3,732 crore have also been announced. These investments include Rs 1,077 crore by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Rs 1,200 crore by Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL), Rs 240 crore PTC Industries, Rs 200 crore Bharat Forge and Rs 900 crore by Kanpur-based MKU.
As per the key sources, defence minister Rajnath Singh, in a virtual meeting with the state authorities recently asked them to complete all the ongoing projects in consonance of their timeline. The state government authorities were also directed by the Centre to work in close coordination with the investors
to redress their grievances and speed up the projects.
Rajnath Singh was specific in directing the state authorities to expedite the land acquisition formalities across two nodes -- Agra and Lucknow. As per the highly-placed sources, nearly 90% or more than 1,300 hectares of total 1,461 hectares approved so far for the corridor had been acquired by the state.
Process for the identification of land on Lucknow outskirts and outside the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ) in Agra districts was on.
Meanwhile, UP additional chief secretary and UPEIDA CEO Awanish Awasthi informed the defence minister that so far 32 MoUs were signed for projects related to UP Defence Corridor. He also claimed that proposals from investors based in South Korea and Ukraine were also received by the state government. He also apprised the defence minister about the proposed investment by Titan Aviation and Aerospace India Limited to the tune of Rs 36,000 crore in Jhansi, for which the detailed project report (DPR) had been submitted.
As per the key sources, Indian Navy has also signed an MoU with UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) for setting up a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in the Defence Corridor to promote research and innovation in defence sector.