UP attracts ₹7,000 cr to ₹10,000 cr investment
State also gets Rs 45,000 crore intents for investment from 10 countries, says IIDC
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government has claimed to have got investment of Rs 7000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore amid the fight against Covid-19. It also claimed to have attracted over 40 intents for investment of about Rs 45,000 from 10 countries that include Japan, the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany and South Korea.
Infrastructure and industrial development commissioner (IIDC) Alok Tandon and additional chief secretary (infrastructure and industrial development department) Alok Kumar said various industrial development authorities allocated nearly 426 acres of land (326 plots) for projects involving an investment size of around Rs 6,700 crore with the potential for creating nearly 1,35,362 jobs.
They said the companies that had grounded their investment by getting land for the projects included the Hiranandani Group, Surya Global, Hindustan Unilever, MG Capsules, Kesho Packaging and Mountain View Technologies. Tandon said the companies that had shifted from China included Dixon. He also said the state government held two rounds of discussions with Microsoft for investment to set up their software development centre on about 10 acre of land in the state. A Microsoft team would visit the state soon, he added.
He said the ease of doing business and infrastructure development had helped in attracting investment in the state. Uttar Pradesh had ranked second in the ease of doing business recently.
He said the state government launched new policies post Covid-19. These include the “Post Covid19 Accelerated Investment Promotion Policy for Backward Regions 2020”. The state government is providing attractive incentives to new industrial units to create growth centres in Purvanchal, Madhyanchal and Bundelkhand regions of the state to fast-track investment there. These regions have also witnessed the highest influx of returning migrant labourers.
Under this policy, Ankur Udyog proposes to set up a steel unit in Gorakhpur. Another proposal for investment to set up a steel plant in the backward region has been received.
Tandon said three centres of excellence, including one by Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K) for start-ups in artificial intelligence, were also coming up. He said Tata Technologies proposed to set up a centre of excellence for defence in Lucknow.
He said the new Startup policy 2020 to promote non-IT based start-ups had been launched. The eligibility limits of private industrial and logistics park had been reduced from 100 to 20 acres in Bundelkhand and Purvanchal, 150 to 30 acres in Paschimanchal and Madhyanchal for private industrial parks and from 50 to 25 acres for logistics parks.
Tandon said post Covid-19, seven projects worth about Rs 8500 crore commenced commercial operations, while 19 projects of about Rs 6,400 crore had entered the active implementation stage.
He said with this, nearly 43% of the leads generated worth around Rs 2 lakh crore were under active stages of implementation.
The upcoming Jewar international airport in Greater Noida has accelerated activities in the region. He said with the airport, projects like MRO/ cargo complex and aerotropolis were likely to come up there. MSME park, electronics park, apparel park, handicraft park and toy park were also proposed in the region. He said the state government recently announced a film city on a 1,000-acre plot located just about six kilometres from the proposed Jewar international airport. These schemes are expected to bring investment worth Rs 40,000 crore and around 2.5-3 lakh employment.
He said a dedicated agency, Invest UP, had been recently established for facilitating and handholding investors. Invest UP had been mandated to carry out both the activities to provide complete investment life cycle support to the investors.