KTR urges Defense Minister to set up Defense Corridor in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, Feb 09: The Telangana Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao on Thursday requested the Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to set up Defence Industrial Production Corridor in Hyderabad.

Minister Rama Rao handed over a memorandum to the Union Minister in Delhi. The Union Finance Minister announced two Defence Industrial Production Corridors in the Budget.

"I would like you to consider Hyderabad in the proposed Defence Industrial Production Corridor to augment and support the growth of Defence manufacturing in Telangana," Rama Rao said in the letter.

"Telangana is strategically located in the center of the country and is home to several public sector defense enterprises and DRDO labs including RCI, DRDL, BDL, DMRL, BDL, Midhani, NFC, ECIL, Bharat Electronics, Ordinance Factory, CITD, BHEL and others," he added.

The State already houses several established private companies working in the Defence and Aerospace sector. Firms like Tata Advanced Systems Limited, MTAR, ATL, SEC, ASTRA, VEM, ZEN, HBL, PEL, IDL etc. have established themselves as manufacturing partners for domestic and foreign OEMS.

Several prestigious National Defence and Space programmes were supported by Telangana based industries, Rama Rao said and requested the Union government to consider Hyderabad for Defence corridor.

On the first day of his two-day tour to Delhi, Rama Rao also called on Union Mining Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and invited him to the Mining Today International Conference cum Exhibition to be held in Hyderabad from February 14 to 19.