The stage is set for the bhoomi puja for Bharat Electrical Limited’s greenfield defence production facility near the Palasamudram village in Anantapur district on Wednesday. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will perform the rites in this village which falls in the Lepakshi industrial cluster.
The facility to be built in Palasamudram and Thungodu villages in Gorantla and Somandevpalli mandals will produce support systems for the country’s missile manufacturing production lines. The BEL facility, coming up on 950 acres at an estimated cost of Rs 1500 crore, is an augmenting facility for the public sector company’s Bangalore operations, which primarily focuses on testing of advanced missile systems.
Construction of the greenfield facility will provide direct employment to around 500 people initially and 1,000 eventually.
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A senior official of BEL said the facility would primarily manufacture Electronic Counter Counter Measure (ECCM) components for future missile and anti-missile systems besides having the capacity for verification of the functionality of integrated missile systems.
The facility will duly play a pivotal role in the ongoing modernisation of the country’s armed forces by catering to emergency requirements in the production of mission critical systems including advanced optical imagery systems for combat use.
The facility would eventually become a 'separate unit' within BEL focused on advanced technologies, research and development, sources said.
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