Two types of Industrial Parks are planned for Coimbatore by the State for aerospace and defence sector, and the land acquisition works for these projects are underway, said Krishnamoorthy, Project Director, TIDCO on Thursday at a key event organized at Kumaraguru Institutions.

It was a seminar titled Accelerating Defence and Aerospace Industry in Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor, and it was jointly organized by the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), Trade Industrial Investment Corporation (TIIC), Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). 

Kranthi Kumar Padi, District Collector, Coimbatore, Krishnamoorthy, Project Director, TIDCO, Hans Raj Verma, Chairman, TIIC, Rajesh, Chairman, SIDM - TN Chapter and Senthil Ganesh, Chairman, CII-Coimbatore took part in the event along with various members of the defence manufacturing sector, MSME sector and the Indian Navy.

India wants to be self-reliant in various sectors especially in the defence sector. It aims to reduce its defence imports and increase its domestic manufacturing for its requirements.

Tamil Nadu is the first defence corridor (a path along which domestic productions of defence equipment by public sector, private sector and MSMEs are lined up to enhance the operational capability of the defence forces) announced by former Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The TN Defence Corridor comprises Coimbatore, Salem, Trichy, Hosur and Chennai.

It has huge opportunities to contribute to this national requirement.

In order to make this contribution, the Tamil Nadu Government is taking various steps to strengthen the Tamil Nadu Defence Corridor and the industries here.

Krishnamoorthy, Project Director, TIDCO shared that two types of Industrial Parks are planned for Coimbatore by the State for aerospace and defence sector. Land acquisition works are going on. One would be a defence industrial park at Varapatti village and the other would be an Aerospace park near Sulur.

In order to enhance the manufacturing ability of industries in Coimbatore, a Common Manufacturing Facility (a center with industry-specific common manufacturing infrastructure) at the estimated worth of Rs. 400 crore is planned, and it will be set up here.

MSMEs can make use of this facility to design, prepare POC, manufacture, test and tune their product, and then take it to their unit to add value and then supply it.

In order to improve the foundries in this region, a Center of Excellence will be set up here and TIDCO will support it.

TIDCO has signed up with Dassault Systèmes and Siemens, leading giants in Industry 4.0 technologies to establish Center of Excellence (COE), and the industries and industrial associations have requested to set up the satellite centers of these COEs here in Coimbatore. This is also in plans.