After Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Assam government has also reached out to the Central government requesting for a defence industrial corridor in their state to cater to large scale deployment of armed forces in the north-eastern states to secure borders with China, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Assam Chief Minister Hemanta Biswa Sarma said at a function a day before that he was in talks with government of India to have third defence industrial corridor. He also expressed hope that the talks may materialise too.

“Maximum deployment of Army is either in Jammu and Kashmir or in Northeast. You take a tank to Northeast and it has to be brought to the mainland in ordinance factory for its repair. Assam can be a big defence corridor, the requirement is there, a big demand also. Supply should also be from there. I’m talking to government of India that after Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the third corridor should be given to Assam. The talk is at fairly advanced stage and I hope it should happen also,” CM Sarma said.

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He also stated that if you look at Indian Army, half of their deployment is already in the northeast. “So, for the replacement and repair of arms and ammunition, they have to come all the way to UP and Rajasthan. Next defence establishments which are coming should be in Assam for effective supply chain. In case, if there is disturbance, arms and ammunition can be made available locally,” he stated.

The CM also stated that having defence industrial corridor was part of thinking to bring investment into the state which did not exist earlier.

The Union government has set up two Defence Industrial Corridors (DICs) in order to attract total investment worth ₹20,000 crore by the year 2024-25 for defence industries, develop domestic supply chain and strengthen defence manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

In UP Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC), there are six nodes — Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Chitrakoot and Lucknow. And Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor (TNDIC) has five nodes — Chennai, Hosur, Coimbatore, Salem and Tiruchirappalli.

Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) is the nodal agency for UPDIC and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) is the nodal agency for TNDIC.

Both the States have promulgated their respective aerospace and defence policy to attract investments in their respective DICs.

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As per April, last year, 108 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) were signed with industry and organisations in the UPDIC having potential investment of ₹12,191 crore. Investment of ₹2,445 crore has been already made and 1611 hectares of land has been acquired so far for development of UPDIC, the Ministry of Defence had said.

In Tamil Nadu, arrangements have been made through MoUs etc with 53 industries for potential investment of ₹11,794 crore. Investment worth ₹3,894 crore has been made and 910 hectares of land has been acquired so far for development of TNDIC, Defence Ministry had revealed.