Ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation of nearly 300 industrial projects totalling Rs 65,000 crore in Kanpur later this month.
The state government is planning to host a mega ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony for projects in Kanpur on February 27. These projects are part of Rs 4.68 lakh crore worth of MoUs signed by the state government with different public and private sector companies at ‘UP Investors' Summit’ in Lucknow on February 21, 2018.
The maiden ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony in Lucknow was attended by Modi on July 29, 2018, who laid the foundation of 80 projects worth Rs 60,000 crore and exhorted the state to compete with Maharashtra for becoming the first trillion dollar economy in India.
In fact, the government had earlier proposed to host the second foundation laying programme in January. However, it was later postponed due to various reasons, including the incomplete groundwork for the proposed projects, such as land acquisition and clearances.
Several hundred industrialists, investors and industry representatives are expected to participate in the February 27 event, which will seek to put Kanpur back on the industrial map of not only UP, but India as well.
Earlier this week, Industrial Development Minister Satish Mahana reviewed preparations for the event. In view of the impending Lok Sabha polls, the state government is anxious to ensure that the mega event sends a positive message to the electorate.
After the first ground-breaking ceremony in July last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of the flagship Bundelkhand Defence Corridor on Friday. The announcement for the corridor was made during UP Investors' Summit in February last year. The Defence Corridor will span six nodes at Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Chitrakoot.
The state government is likely to allot land to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) near Agra-Lucknow Expressway in the Defence Corridor. The BEL is engaged in advanced aerospace and defence production for Indian Armed forces.
The Centre had de-licensed 275 defence wares and encouraged private manufacturers to supply these to forces by competing with Public Sector Undertakings (PSU), which earlier enjoyed monopoly.
These items have been clubbed as ‘non-core items’ of Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). The Army can float tenders, in which both private sector and OFB could participate.
