Lucknow: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the setting up of a defence industrial corridor in Bundelkhand region, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that a Defence Investors’ Cell will be made under her guidance to ensure speedy development of the corridor.

“We will soon constitute a task force and send teams to Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur and Lucknow to discuss how will the defence be working in the next 50 years. A portal will be available to answer all the queries round the clock,” the defence minister said during the concluding day of UP Investors’ Summit here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced on Wednesday that his government will establish a Rs 20,000-crore defence industrial production corridor in Bundelkhand, a region divided between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh that will generate 250,000 jobs and bring development to one of the most impoverished regions of the country.

“I am making an important announcement. In this year's budget, we had announced that we will establish two defence industrial production corridors. One of them will be in Bundelkhand,” Modi said addressing the inaugural session of the summit.

On the first day of the UP Investors’ Summit, the state signed 1,045 Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) worth Rs 4.28 lakh crores. Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, “It is a matter of pride for the state that fortune-500 companies are participating in the summit. I want to tell you all that till now, we have signed 1,045 MoUs worth Rs 4.28 lakh crore. The amount of the annual budget recently presented by my government was Rs 4.28 lakh crore, and the amount of MOUs signed today is the same. We are heading towards a new Uttar Pradesh.”

Yogi added, “Uttar Pradesh is heading towards development and shedding its ‘bimaru’ tag. We are trying to become developed.”