₹500 crore for acquiring defence corridor land
LUCKNOW : The Yogi government has allocated ₹500 crore for its prestigious Defence Corridor project in the Bundelkhand region through which it aims to generate around one lakh jobs in the region that faces subsequent droughts.
The UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) will set the process in motion later this month.
The UPEIDA is the nodal agency for acquiring land for the project. It has identified 5000 hectares of government and farmers’ land in Bundelkhand for rolling out the project. Small and heavy arms manufacturing units will come up in this corridor. The Yogi government has also invited international arms manufacturers, including Boeing Commercial Airlines of United States, to set up their units in the Bundelkhand Defence Corridor.
It was on August 11 last at the Defence summit in Aligarh that a based US company had offered to set up Boeing manufacturing unit in the Bundelkhand corridor. If the proposal is conceptualised then the unit is most likely to come up in Jhansi.
Till date, the industrial town in Kanpur houses almost all defence sector units in Uttar Pradesh, including government and private. The PM had announced the defence corridor project at the investors’ summit in Lucknow on February 21 last year. In the first phase, the project will be rolled out in Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, and Aligarh. An area of 3000 hectares has been proposed for the project in Jhansi, 300 hectares in Chitrakoot and 100 hectares in Aligarh. A senior state government official, who did not wish to be named, said: “The PM is likely to lay the foundation stone of defence industrial corridor project (in Jhansi) on February 17. The proposal has been sent to the PMO but we are waiting for consent.”