India’s leading defence and aerospace companies such as BEML, Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) have agreed to establish their component manufacturing facilities in India’s first defence park at Palakkad.
The Kinfra Defence Park is set to develop as a part of ‘Make in India’ program and state’s ‘Make in Kerala’ project. The civil work which is going on, will be over by January 2019 and it will be launched by March 2019.
This 60-acre park will cost 191 crore and it will have all the modern facilities for defence equipment manufacturer with assistance from the Centre’s Modified Industrial Infrastructure Upgradation (MIIU) scheme.
“The defence park is aimed at MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) as we have only 60 acres. We have held talks with leading companies such as BEML, HAL, and BEL. They have agreed to tell their suppliers to establish their facilities in the park. We are confident several small and micro units will set up their units in the defence park,” said Kinfra managing director K A Santhosh Kumar.
The centre has given 50 crore for establishing the park and remaining will be provided by the state government. The park will be used to manufacture components like rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, defence navigation products, submarine building, components of warship/naval, defence IT systems and solution, and many more.
Santhosh Kumar said, “a rail siding will be established from its plant at Kanjikode to the defence park so that it can do the finishing work of its Tatra trucks and Metro coaches, and transport it via the rail route to Bengaluru.”
Officials informed that a team from state government, Kinfra and industry bodies such as CII and FICCI will market the park by a road show to prospective companies for setting up a unit in defence and aerospace sector.
