Lucknow: The Government of Uttar Pradesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the eve of the Global Investors’ Summit in Lucknow to set up South Asia’s largest integrated manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor.

In his address at the UP summit, Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani highlighted the importance of having self-reliance in high-quality ammunition and the manufacturing complex is Adani Defence’s endeavour towards equipping our Armed Forces with state-of-the-art battlefield equipment.

CEO, UP Expressways & Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) and Additional Chief Secretary, Awanish Kumar Awasthi, said this project is going to prove as a landmark in the history of indigenous defence manufacturing.

Giving more details about the plans to build South Asia’s largest manufacturing facility, Ashish Rajvanshi, President & CEO of Adani Defence & Aerospace, said, “With our vision of nation-building combined with the clarion call of Atmanirbhar Bharat by the Honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi ji, we are setting up South Asia’s largest integrated ammunition complex in the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor.

"The ammunition complex will have state-of-the-art technology across small and medium calibre ammunition, along with short-range air defence missiles. It shall be a key facilitator in India’s goal of achieving US$5.0 billion exports in defence manufacturing.

The complex, which is spread over 250+ acres and an investment of around 1,500 crore is slated to have state-of-the-art technology across small and medium calibre ammunition, along with short-range air defence missiles.

There are plans to hire around 1,500 people, who will use the best-in-class technologies to manufacture high-quality ammunition for domestic and export markets.

Aligned to the Make-In-India vision, Adani Defence and Aerospace has bolstered its vision to make the country’s defence manufacturing self-reliant with several such initiatives in the recent past, which include India’s first unmanned aerial vehicles manufacturing facility and India’s first private sector small arms manufacturing facility.

Rajvanshi concluded, “The recent geopolitical events have further reinforced that self-reliance in defence and security has to be accelerated. Unmanned platforms, short-range missiles and ammunitions, cyber defence coupled with AI/ML-driven analytics will become the decisive factors in the future wars and conflicts.”