Capacity of HAL, Sunabeda to double in 4 years: Parrikar

Bhubaneswar: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday announced that the Centre had decided to double the capacity of engine factory of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) located at Sunabeda in Koraput district.

Talking to media persons here, Parrikar said, “We have decided to double the capacity of the Koraput engine factory in the next four years. Similarly, we are considering a request made by the local MLA and office bearers to increase the capacity of the Badamal ordnance factory.

Taking a dig at the State government for collecting money from youths for organising job fairs, Parrikar said, “The capacity increase of the engine and ordnance factories in Odisha will help us create employment in the State without taking Rs 100.”

Parrikar, who was on a day's visit to Odisha to attend BJP’s Vikash Utsav at Cuttack and a host of other programmes, said, “We made effort to develop indigenuously-built defence products and the results are there to see. When we came to power, around 70 percent of defence products were being imported, whereas now the percentage has fallen below 60 percent.”

He also met ex-servicemen and Defence Ministry officials during his visit.

Besides, he went to BJB Nagar in Bhubaneswar to meet his former teacher Prof Prashant Kumar Patnaik, who taught him at the IIT, Mumbai.