The plant, which will initially be set up over 250 acres, is set to be inaugurated next month and will start producing small arms ammunition in the first phase.
Being set up with an initial investment of ₹1,500 crore, the plant will first manufacture 7.62 and 5.56 mm bullets that are used in assault rifles and carbines across the world. Adani Defence is looking to tap into the export market as well as meet Indian requirements with the new facility.
“Looking at what’s happening on the geo political stage on the Middle East and eastern Europe, demand has shot up in the past two years. We are talking about demands for 100s of millions of rounds which is coming from different parts of the world,” Ashish Rajvanshi, chiwf wxwcutive officer of Adani Defence & Aerospace told ET.
The plant is likely to be expanded in the coming months, with a total of 500 acres set aside, and will produce large caliber ammunition, including 155 mm artillery shells that are in big demand across the world due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. “The ammunition plant is now getting operationalised on the small caliber and very soon on the large caliber,” Rajvanshi added.
The plant, billed by the group as the largest integrated ammunition manufacturing facility in south Asia, is coming up at the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor. In the future it is also likely to be the final assembly and integration unit for missiles and bombs manufactured by the group.A memorandum of understanding for setting up the plant was signed in June 2022 and it was mentioned that it would provide over 1500 jobs. Plant machinery has already been brought in and is being set up with the aim to start production by next month.The ammunition sector had largely been confined to public sector units in the past but the policy was reversed in 2014, with the government encouraging the private sector to enter the field. At present, there are only two other private sector ammunition manufacturers of note.
