IIT-BHU to supply know-how to defence corridor in UP
VARANASI : A defence research centre, known as Malaviya Centre of Excellence for Defence Corridor, is coming up on premises of the IIT-BHU here to speed up work on the defence industrial corridor in Uttar Pradesh.
This centre will provide support in terms of the latest defence manufacturing technologies, training and skill development of manpower required for industrial units in the corridor.
The announcement that Uttar Pradesh will have the country’s second defence equipment manufacturing corridor was made during the UP Investors’ Summit in February last year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of the project in Jhansi in February. The project is aimed at making the state a defence manufacturing hub and generating employment opportunities for the youths. The central government has the earmarked six nodal points for the defence industrial corridor in Uttar Pradesh. These are Kanpur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi and Chitrakoot.
Malaviya Centre of Excellence for Defence Corridor will have sophisticated equipment for defence related research for developing and designing robotics as per need of the defence sector. The centre is one of its kind in eastern UP.
“The main objective of the centre is research in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics for border security and defence manufacturing technologies,” IIT-BHU director Pramod Kumar Jain said, adding that it would also work on cyber security. IIT-BHU is knowledge partner of Uttar Pradesh government for the project. UP government chose IIT-BHU in September 2018 after a detailed presentation on planning and steps required to be taken for making the defence industrial corridor a reality by the IIT-BHU director. In February, the UP government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with IIT-BHU and sanctioned Rs 690 million for developing the state-of-the art defence research centre. The state government released Rs 20 million for the same.
Subsequently, IIT-BHU prepared a detailed project and found a place near the central instrumentation building on its campus where it started developing the defence research centre.
“As knowledge partner for the defence corridor project, we are working closely with the UP government to speed up defence industrial corridor project. We are developing a defence research centre on the campus to impart training to training to engineers and technicians,” prof Jain said. He confirmed the UP government had sanctioned Rs 690 million for the centre.
He said skill development of engineers in latest defence technologies was most likely to begin by February 2020.
Once the defence research centre is ready, the best engineers of the defence manufacturing sector from different countries will be invited for training, he said. There is also plan to impart training to Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) for skill development of their students in defence manufacturing so that they could get employment when the defence sector manufacturer start setting up the units. Prof Rajiv Prakash, co-coordinator of the defence research centre, says, “Industries that will come up in this corridor to produce indigenous defence equipment will get support from this centre in terms of sophisticated equipment, as well as skill and knowledge to meet the present challenges.”