Tamil Nadu seeks to carve a niche in the aerospace and defence manufacturing in view of the Central government’s plan to promote self-reliance in defence manufacturing in the country through defence industrial corridors and other measures.

Tamil Nadu will be housing one of the two proposed defence industrial corridors with five nodes at Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Coimbatore, Salem and Hosur. This corridor is expected to create new defence production facilities and clusters with necessary testing and certification facilities and export facilitation centres. The detailed project report is under preparation.

Four proposals

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Government has also sent four proposals to the Central Government pertaining to Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor (TNDIC).

“We have given four proposals to the Centre. While they are examining same, we have also had a meeting with the Defence Minister. They will have to get back to us on this. I think the Defence Ministry is actively considering our proposals,” Thangam Thennarasu, Tamil Nadu Minister for Industries told BusinessLine on the sidelines of ACMEE 2021 exhibition.

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Tamil Nadu has proposed to house testing facilities under Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS) of Ministry of Defence (MoD). The State government has been directed to participate in the tender process and follow the procedure and scheme guidelines in this regard.

Leasing land

The State government is also planning to lease about 160 acres of defence land near Ulundurpet in Villupuram district for the creation of an aviation technology hub. This proposal is outside the identified nodes of TNDIC.

A proposal has also been submitted to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for establishment of Aircraft MRO Complex in 50 acres of land at Chennai Airport.

Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation has identified around 500 acres of land at Varapatti near Sulur and 1,000 acres of land in Annur in Coimbatore District to develop industrial parks to accommodate defence industries

The State government had recently appointed B Krishnamoorthy who served in different capacities in various defence PSUs as Project Director, TNDIC, at the level of Additional Secretary.

MoUs

The State government has started land acquisition and undertaking measures to develop defence industrial and aerospace parks. It has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with 39 industries.

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Against the projected investments worth ₹12,226 crore as per MoUs with various private/public industries in TNDIC, investments of more than ₹2,200 crore have already been made in the last three years.

Further, the State government has also spent ₹30 crore for development of an aerospace park, for which about 250 acres of land has been acquired at Sriperumbudur.