Nirmala Sitharaman lauds officials for quick work on UP defence corridor plan

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday lauded officials for working out in a very short span of time the details of the defence industrial corridor in Uttar Pradesh which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.

‘The details of the defence corridor announced by the Prime Minister yesterday were worked out in 18 days time,” Sitharaman said at the ‘Defence and Aerospace Investment Opportunities in Uttar Pradesh’, part of the ongoing ‘Investors Summit-2018″ here.

“When Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had come to extend an invitation for the summit on February 2 there was a reference about the corridor,” she said.

She said she had mentioned then that if Uttar Pradesh is willing or shows interest then “we will be able to do something… I had mentioned this to the Prime Minister and he immediately asked us to go ahead with it”.

Praising the bureaucracy of both the Centre and the state, she said: “The speed with which we were asked to go about the project and the promptness with which the Chief Minister directed his officials to act on it…officials worked together in complete coordination and there was no complaint from anywhere and Prime Minister made an announcement in 18 days time.”

She said Bundelkhand will benefit from the corridor.

Sitharaman said the atmosphere in Uttar Pradesh in the past 20-25 years did not give any encouragement to industry.

Adityanath said earlier that there are immense possibilities for the defence corridor in the state. ‘There are immense possibilities for defence corridor as well as aerospace.”