PM to open UP Investors’ Summit in Lucknow today
With the summit, the Yogi government attempts to transform the state’s image from a backward one to an investment friendly destination
LUCKNOW: The stage is set for the Uttar Pradesh Investors’ Summit-2018 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate in Lucknow on Wednesday.
UP’s infrastructure and industrial development commissioner (IIDC) Anoop Chandra Pandey said: “We expect about 5,000 participants at the two-day summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate here on Wednesday. About 18 union ministers, industry leaders, about 200 CEOs and foreign dignitaries will attend the summit. President Ram Nath Kovind will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony on Thursday.” The state capital has been decorated specially for the summit, an official said. Around 6,000 streetlight poles have been painted and decorated with silver colour LED light strings, the official added. Municipal commissioner Udairaj Singh said, “Officials have worked hard for this event and the LMC wants to paint the best picture of city in front of the guests.”
With this summit, the Yogi Adityanath government, by its own admission, is attempting to
transform the state’s image from a backward one to an investment friendly destination.
“I was surprised in the beginning when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah sent me to take over as the chief minister…We wanted to speak to some bankers on some issues. Nobody used to take
phone calls. Nobody was ready to invest in UP…. Now, everybody wants to come to UP (for investment). This is because the atmosphere is now changed in Uttar Pradesh,” Adityanath said in an interview to HT.
Ahead of the summit, the state government organised six road shows, including one in Mumbai in December last year and the chief minister attended it to interact with industrialists.
“Such road shows were passed off as summits during the previous regimes. I have not seen such a grand event in 27 years of my public life,” said UP minister for industry Satish Mahana.
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We expect about 5,000 participants at the twoday summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate here on Wednesday. About 18 union ministers, industry leaders, 200 CEOs and foreign dignitaries will attend the summit
ANOOP CHANDRA PANDEY, IID commissioner
Mahana said about 900 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were signed ahead of the summit.
Pandey said he would try to ensure that all the MoUs signed now are implemented in the next six months. “We hope to create 25 lakh direct jobs in the state,” he said.
Yogi and his team will face the challenge of not only implementing the MoUs but also ensuring that there is no ‘politics’ on investment issues.
After BSP chief Mayawati took over as state chief minister in 2007, the state government had ordered closure of Reliance Fresh stores. A few years later, a number of industrial units threatened to shift out of state as the Mayawati government decided to withdraw the concessions given to investors in pursuance of Uttar Pradesh Industrial Investment Promotion Policy2006 announced by her predecessor Mulayam Singh Yadav.
“We are not indulging in any such politics and the incentives being given to investors during the previous regime still continue,” said Mahana.
As the law and order situation was one of the reasons for keeping investors away from the state in the past, the Yogi government decided to take some tough measures, moving the Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Bill in the state legislature and giving a free hand to the police to act against criminals.