Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has requested the Centre to set up a dedicated defence corridor and an aeronautical university in Odisha.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, he said Odisha provides a comprehensive ecosystem and state-of-the-art industrial infrastructure facilities for indigenous design, development and manufacturing in defence and aerospace sector.
Justifying his contention, he said Odisha is the largest producer of steel, stainless steel and aluminium in the country with the availability of defence and aerospace grade products from the mother plants of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Tata Steel, Hindalco Industries Ltd and National Aluminium Company Ltd.
Besides, the state has existing manufacturing, operation and maintenance, testing and research ecosystem in the form of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Aero Engine Facility at Koraput, Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, DRDO Laboratory at Balasore and Ordnance Factory at Balangir, he added.
This apart, to support downstream industries in aerospace and defence sector, the state has more than 1,00,000 acres of industrial land bank and dedicated industrial regions with large pool of skilled manpower and presence of national institutes of higher learning such as IIT, NIT, IIM, lIIT, NISER, XIMB etc, the chief minister pointed out.
“Odisha is in advanced stages of promulgating a dedicated defence and aerospace manufacturing policy to promote cluster-based development of the industry. In view of these unique advantages, the overall cost of production of defence and aerospace products would be very competitive,” he informed the Prime Minister.
Naveen assured Modi that the state government will ensure unmatched facilitation support for quick and successful establishment of both the defence industry corridor and the aeronautical university in the state.
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