New Delhi: Defence Minsiter Rajnath Singh, on June 17 said “not only nuts and bolts”, but BrahMos missiles, drones along with electronic warfare systems will be manufactured and assembled in the defence corridor of Uttar Pradesh.

The Uttar pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC) is an aspirational project that focuses on minimising the dependency of the Indian aerospace as well as defence sectors on foreign suppliers.

“What is important is that in the UP defence corridor, not only nuts and bolts or spare parts will be manufactured, (but) drones, UAVs, electronic warfare (systems), aircraft and BrahMos missiles will also be manufactured and assembled,” Rajnath Singh stated at an event on ” Atmanirbhar Bharat .”

The Defence Minsiter further added that “enabling environments” have been set up for defence manufacturing through defence corridors in Uttar Pradesh along with Tamil Nadu.

Singh adding further said, “I have been told that for this corridor, the land which is planned to be acquired is around 1,700 hectare. Of this, more than 95 per cent of land has already been acquired.”

The defence minister stated that 36 industries and institutions already have been allotted nearly 600 hectares of land and that 109 Memorandum of Understandings(MoUs) are signed, carrying an investment value of Rs 16,000 crore.

Up until now, investments of about Rs 2,500 crore have been done towards UPDIC by various organizations, the defence minister added.

The six nodes where UPDIC will be set up are- Agra, Aligarh, Chitrakut, Jhansi, Kanpur and Lucknow.