Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) plans to invest close to Rs 6,000 crore over the next five years to expand its manufacturing capacity in order to meet the growing needs of the Indian army.

OFB currently has 39 manufacturing units across the country and two more factories are likely to come up soon, according to Mr Dinesh M Gupta, DGOF and Chairman, OFB. Indian army accounts for almost 80 per cent of OFB's total order book.

“Our expenditure outlay of Rs 6,000 crore has been approved by the Union Government. We are setting up two new factories at Nalanda in Bihar, and Korwa in Uttar Pradesh. We are also looking at expansion of some of our existing factories,” Mr Gupta told Business Line .

OFB has already commenced trial run at its Korwa factory, however, the work at Nalanda factory had come to a standstill, he said.

Strains in tie-up

The Israel Military Industries (IMI) was to put up a plant for using the by-products generated from the plants at Nalanda. However, that has not happened due to OFB's alliance with IMI running into a rough weather, it is learnt from informed sources. OFB, therefore, plans to go for a parallel tendering process for the plant.

The arms and ammunitions supplier is also planning brownfield expansion at three existing production centres. “We have spare land available at Bolangir in Orissa, Ambajhari in Nagpur, and Medak in Hyderabad. These could be the possible locations for adding capacities,” he said.

Ordnance Factory registered about 30 per cent growth in its turnover to Rs 11,000 crore in 2010-11. “Our order book is overflowing with higher demand for traditional products primarily from the Indian army. We hope to grow our turnover to Rs 20,000 crore over the next four-to-five years,” he said.

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