Uttar Pradesh ready to reap the benefits of tax cut and reforms
GREAT POTENTIAL State has put in place policies for investors in different sectors, says CM
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh proposes to make full use of the measures announced by the union government to boost the economy. The measures include cut in corporate tax and providing additional capital of Rs 70,000 crore to public sector banks to increase lending to industry.
A lower corporate tax, coupled with a large number of the state’s attractive fiscal incentives, including up to 100 per cent reimbursement of SGST and subsidy on land and interest, may help woo investors to UP and also a trillion-dollar economy.
“Uttar Pradesh has a great potential to take advantage of corporate tax cut and other measures. We have put in place policies for investors in different sectors. UP has the largest markets for consumer durables, fast moving consumer goods and logistics and the companies will like to set up their units closer to the state’s markets to further optimise their profits,” said chief minister Yogi Adityanath in an informal chat with mediapersons on Wednesday.
UP has the fourth largest economy with a GSDP of Rs 15.42 lakh crore. Though the state government claims 8 per cent growth in GSDP there are indications that it has grown 7 per cent in 2017-2018 and 6.5 per cent in 2018-2019. The state will need to have a GSDP of Rs 70 lakh crore to become a trillion-dollar economy. At present pace, the state will take 10-12 years to become a trillion-dollar economy and will have to grow faster to achieve this objective early.
Yogi quotes his government’s efforts like the formulation of policies with incentives for different
sectors and Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit-2018 as major steps to push the state towards achieving the objective of making it a trillion-dollar economy.
The state government had signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 4.28 lakh crore before the summit and Yogi said about 2 lakh crore in investment has been brought from these MoUs.
“We may hold the third ground-breaking ceremony by December 2019 to implement MoUs worth another Rs 65,000 crore, said Yogi.
The chief minister’s challenges are, however, much more than just the formulation of polices and announcements of incentives .
Yogi acknowledges that work is on to improve connectivity while a question mark hangs on his government’s claims on bringing about an improvement on law and order situation.
“UP has no problem for the industry that may face problems elsewhere. Companies like Samsung have made a large investment in UP and more such companies will make investment in near future as the state is providing safe and secure environment for investors. We will have an advantage of good connectivity. UP lies along eastern and western dedicated freight corridors and 57 per cent of Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor and 8.5 per cent of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor’s area falls in UP. New highways are coming up and seven airports have been made operational. Work is in progress on 11 more airports,” he said.
“We do have challenge of increasing the per capita income in the state. For this we have initiated measures to push agriculture, as well. About 14 lakh hectares of additional land has been provided for irrigation facilities. We have four agriculture universities -- Ayodhya in east UP, Kanpur in central UP, Meerut in west UP and an agriculture university in Bundelkhand. These universities have been asked to connect with the farmers and the Kisan Vigyan Kendras have been attached to the universities for the purpose,” said Yogi.
The UP Defence Industrial Corridor is expected to attract investment of around $ 2.8 billion and create 0.25 million employment opportunities. The state promises to provide 25 per cent subsidy to investors proposing to invest along the defence corridor.