Defence Equipment Manufacturers’ Association (DEMA), which is an association of more than 50 engineering industries in and around Pune, is working towards establishing a defence electronic manufacturing cluster in the city. Addressing the media on Wednesday, DEMA officials said while a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has already been launched for the cluster, they are awaiting the allotment of land and grant from the central government.
The officials were speaking on the sidelines of a press conference to announce DEMA Excellence Awards, 2017, which will be given to 11 companies working in the Defence manufacturing sector.
Though DEMA has mainly been a knowledge-sharing platform, they have also made several contributions towards establishing a Defence electronics manufacturing cluster in Pune.
The cluster is proposed to come up under a central government scheme, which gives grant for the land and also for various common testing facilities.
Shirish Deshmukh, president of DEMA, said, “The idea of the Defence electronic cluster had been floated in the past. As a step towards it, we had formed an SPV — DEMA Electronic and Strategic Technology Cluster — one-and-a-half-year ago. After that, we approached the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) for land. The agency has agreed to give us the land, but have also said that we get the required formalities completed from the central government ministry. We are working towards getting this done.”
DEMA officials said the MIDC has agreed to give them 20 to 22 acres of a land in s. “The cluster, if set up, will have important common testing facilities, which will benefit the manufacturers who set their plants in the cluster. Considering the presence of a large number of Defence research laboratories and establishments of all three Defence forces, the proposed cluster gains more importance,” they added.
By Baishakhi Dutta
