‘Young population gives UP an edge over other states’

LUCKNOW:Sanjay Gupta is currently leading HCL’s foray into new locations in India and is responsible to start HCL operations in Lucknow, Madurai and Nagpur amongst others. Gupta, who has completed over 22 years in HCL and has spearheaded many challenging portfolios, spoke to Rajeev Mullick. Excerpts.

What are your expectations from UP investors’ summit?

Uttar Pradesh is India’s heartland and offers immense investment opportunities. The state government has designed a new industrial policy which promises ease of doing business, promotes employment and aims at reviving UP’s industrial centres. Naturally, this has evoked a lot of interest for investment in the state. HCL has a long history with UP and it is central to HCL’s growth and success. We are headquartered in Noida and have deeply invested in the state’s development. I believe that the summit has the potential to transform Uttar Pradesh into a dynamic economy.

What do you think Uttar Pradesh needs to do to prevent migration of its educated youth to metros for employment opportunities?

If a state does not have a good industrial and entrepreneurial environment the youth will want to migrate for jobs. There are not many employment opportunities in rural areas forcing educated youths to migrate to metros. Slow industrial growth too has been a challenge. What is needed is more investment, better ease of doing business to promote entrepreneurship in the state. The state government has made employment generation and skill development a priority and it should help.

Lucknow has been billed as UP’s next IT hub after Noida. What incentives should the state government give?

The state government has created a congenial environment for investors with the launch of progressive and sector focused policies like IT Policy 2012 and IT & Start-Up Policy. Lucknow is on its way to becoming an IT hub. In fact, HCL’s IT City project is an outcome of the fruition of the state’s policy. A 100acre IT City has been built in Lucknow on public private partnership (PPP) model at an investment worth Rs 1500 crore.

HCL also set up a Skill Development Centre (SDC) in October 2016 within HCL IT City. It is imparting training to youth which will lead to gainful employment. We believe progressive and sector-specific policies will lead to development of IT industry in Tier-II & Tier-III cities of the state.

In which areas do you think UP has an edge over other states?

We believe that the state has an advantage with its young population, diversity and infrastructural expanse. Infrastructure development is one of the key elements in the state’s growth story.

Also, Uttar Pradesh possesses one of the largest populations of young people in the country contributing significantly to India’s employable labour force. In order to work towards the betterment of rural UP, HCL Foundation is also working towards creating model villages through its development project ‘Samuday’. The project has so far touched over 6 lakh people through various interventions in the fields of education, agriculture, health, water, sanitation and hygiene, solar energy and livelihood.

Why do you think successive UP governments were unable to create a conducive IT and entrepreneurship ecosystem here?

We would refrain from commenting on this, as every government governs and functions in different ways.