The South Asia’s largest manufacturing complex has been dedicated to the brave warriors of the Balakot strike who carried out ‘Operation Bandar’ in response to the Pulwama attack that claimed the lives of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers.
The two units are being projected as a symbol of India’s journey towards self-reliance and technological prowess in the defence sector.
The facility, spread across 202 hectares in Saadh area of the Kanpur district will begin its production of arms, ammunition, rockets and artillery shells March onwards.
“From March, one of the units of ADA will start manufacturing ammunition and further on their production speed will gradually increase,” said Sadhir Kumar Srivastava, deputy commissioner, industries, Kanpur.
According to Ashish Rajvanshi, CEO, Adani Defence, nearly 4000 jobs will be generated in this complex with 5x multiplier.“Production of missiles will be on demand supply base of Indian Armed Forces,” he further said.Also Read: Balakot Airstrike Anniversary: When India took revenge for the Pulwama attack deep inside Pak
Adani Group’s Carroballista Systems Limited (CSL) is set to produce approximately a dozen varieties of firearms in collaboration with the Israeli company Elbit System Israel. Meanwhile, Agneya Systems Limited (ASL) manufacture forty types of ammunition and rocket systems in partnership with Armaco JSCO, a Bulgarian company.
In 2022, Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Authority (UPIDA) had inked memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Adani Aerospace and Defence and several other firms to develop Kanpur as South Asia’s largest manufacturing facility for arms and ammunition.
Consequently, the Adani Defence System and Technologies Limited (ADSTL) acquired 202 hectares of land and laid the plan to develop four manufacturing units with state-of-the art technology to build small and medium calibre ammunition, along with short-range air defence missiles.
Thereafter, the company formed Carroballista Systems Limited (CSL) and Agneya Systems Limited (ASL) through which it would manufacture around 12 types of guns (with the Israeli firm Elbit System) in addition to making 40 types of ammunition and rocket systems (with Bulgarian firm Armaco JSCO).
The Adani unit will also manufacture light machine gun NEGEV, assault rifles ACE and TAVOR, 9mm pistol Masada, sub-machine gun Uzi, sniper rifles Galil and DAN, in collaboration with Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) at Saadh.
“It will be a key facilitator in India’s goal of achieving $5.0 billion exports in defence manufacturing,” said Rajvanshi.
According to the deputy commissioner, industries, Kanpur, the CSL will manufacture 300 units of gun system per year for 155 mm calibre to 200 mm calibre, on the five acres of land provided on lease by ADSTL.
“The CSL has claimed to generate 1,000 jobs indirectly from their unit,” said Srivastava.
Further, the arms manufacturing licence of ASL and ADSTL revealed that every year the group will also manufacture 50,000 units each of bi-modular charge system (BMCS) for artillery guns, anti-aircraft movable rockets, 155mm smoke projectiles, 155 mm artillery shells, mortars (81, 84 and 120 mm), 5 lakh hand grenades, 4 lakh piece of 40mm rocket-propelled grenade and other varied calibre of armour-piercing, high-explosive anti-tank ammunition, and different types of demolition charges.
According to the latest SIPRI report, with an 11 per cent share of total global arms imports, India was the world’s biggest importer of major arms from 2018 to 2022, a position it has held for the period 1993–2022.
It retained this position even though its arms imports dropped by 11 per cent between 2013–17 and 2018–22.
The decrease was attributed to several factors including attempts to replace imports with major arms that are designed and produced domestically, India’s slow and complex arms procurement process and efforts to diversify its arms suppliers.
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