For the first time, the Centre is working towards creating clusters of States and Union Territories, each backed by dedicated IITs and other centres of excellence, to build a federal architecture for defence manufacturing aimed at reducing import dependence and boosting economic growth. The seven proposed clusters are independent of the existing defence industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.“The Ministry of Defence's whole-of-nation proposal is at an advanced stage of consideration. Defence Production Secretary Sanjeev Kumar has already held two meetings of stakeholders, including States, UTs, defence PSUs, IITs and centres of excellence, on June 2 and June 10. All seven clusters were formalised and assigned themes for preparing individual roadmaps or vision documents,” an official source told businessline.The clusters have been asked to submit reports by next month detailing their contribution to the thematic agenda, pain points, infrastructure needs, regulatory requirements, and ease-of-doing-business measures. Based on these inputs, the Centre is expected to deliberate on policy interventions to strengthen defence manufacturing and the broader economy.“This will generate both direct value addition and wider macroeconomic benefits, acting as an `output GDP multiplier’ whereby every rupee spent in defence manufacturing creates more than double the economic activity across the country,” the official said.Each cluster has a lead State, co-lead State, participating States or UTs, and designated IITs and centres of excellence to provide R&D and innovation support.Karnataka leads the first cluster, with Rajasthan as co-lead and Kerala and Chhattisgarh as participating States. IISc Bengaluru, IIT Dharwad, IIT Jodhpur, IIT Palakkad and IIT Bhilai will support the theme: "Policy, Institutional Architecture and Governance".