TOI Dialogues-Infrastructure chapter: Industry leaders back UP's strategy; defence ecosystem gains spotlight

Lucknow hosted the Infrastructure Chapter on Thursday, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, changemakers and experts for panel discussions and fireside chats on urban development, smart mobility, sustainability and industrial growth.

The event also served as a networking platform for real estate developers, infrastructure consultants and investors eyeing opportunities in Uttar Pradesh. A key highlight was the panel on ‘Defence & Infrastructure Development’, themed ‘UP’s Strategic Defence Corridor: From Manufacturing to Modernisation’.Speakers included Col Sanjay Singh, Sudhir Mishra (former CEO & MD, BrahMos Aerospace), Major General Ajay Chaturvedi (defence expert), Manoj Gupta (chairman, MKU Ltd), and Milind Raj, known as the “Drone Man of India”.Responding to a question on how prepared Uttar Pradesh is to tap into India’s defence manufacturing push, Manoj Gupta said, “This defence manufacturing journey started from 2018, as we all know that the announcement of two nodes, one in UP and one in Tamil Nadu was announced by honourable Prime Minister in the first investor’s summit. Post that our honourable CM finalised six nodes in UP. These nodes have grown so drastically, so fast and I'm happy to say that almost most of these nodes are all being allotted and full with the industries.”

H

e added, “The kind of infrastructure developments during recent years, it has raised the interest of many investors in India and worldwide to put up their facilities in UP.” He also pointed out that the recent geopolitical crisis had added further urgency. “Another major push has come up in the defence sector and everyone is now looking up to it especially when the government is increasing defence manufacturing.”Sudhir Mishra, speaking on bridging the gap between science and private investment, said UP had emerged as a logical location for expansion. He said that there had always been defense in southern India because of maybe the geographical reasons."But if we see today, then, geography plays not much role but we wanted to spread out from, uh, our facilities at Hyderabad, Nagpur, Pilani and Delhi and Trivandrum of course so we, uh, when we discussed with Raksha Mantri and we closed down on the Lucknow.

Because UP defense corridor has been designated as a as a place where we can set up and the right ecosystem would come.”"Right ecosystem is required where technology can be converted into industry which UP corridor has,” he added. Major general Chaturvedi noted that such initiatives take time. “My own understanding of the whole thing is that these are the things which take a little time. They've got their own moment of inertia.

So you are, if you are expecting, that DC will become operationalized in two years three years, not it is not possible.” He added, “Road means development, and development means depends. Therefore first, they had gone for a big road infrastructure.

Sustained power supply availability of water. Now, 1 area, which is still being done, is capacity building and capacity building in terms of manpower.”Col Sanjay Singh highlighted the uniqueness of the defence corridor in UP. “Why is unique is because unlike the other states here, the complete land that was acquired for the defense industry corridor was a green field acquisition. Now, that became a biggest challenge as far as the infrastructure was concerned. 1207 crore rupees worth work is being executed or has been completed.”Rounding off the session, Milind Raj said that the research ecosystem in the state had given a big push to innovation. “This kind of ecosystem, which is given Entrepreneurs to start a players by the government is extremely important and UP has unparalleled potential.”