Covid-19 crisis: UP readies for post-lockdown industrial sector reboot

Adityanath government institutes exclusive cells to help industries

In view of the proposed conditional lifting of the lockdown from April 20, the Uttar Pradesh government has set up special cells/desks to help in the ‘reboot’ of permitted industries.
 

The respective departments in the heavy industries; micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME); and information technology (IT) sectors have instituted exclusive wings to facilitate the smooth resumption of industrial activities and resolution of their pending issues.

In this regard, UP government’s investment facilitation interface Udyog Bandhu and UP Electronics Corporation (UPLC) have set up separate help-desks for ensuring smooth operations of the permitted heavy industries and IT companies, respectively, post lockdown.

“These helpdesks will resolve issues related to the resumption of operations by the large scale industrial and IT sector units, including the regulatory matters,” UP principal secretary, infrastructure & industrial development and IT & electronics Alok Kumar said.

He has advised the entrepreneurs/companies to communicate their problems on industryhelpdesk@udyogbandhu.com, which would be monitored by nominated nodal officers at Udyog Bandhu for resolution.

Similarly, IT hardware manufacturing units and IT & IT enables services (ITeS) could convey their grievances on ituphelpline@gmail.com, which would be monitored and resolved by UPLC nodal officers under the directives of senior officials.

On Thursday, the Yogi Adityanath government had issued lockdown guidelines, wherein specific industrial sectors were allowed to resume operations from April 20 with certain conditions according to the central advisory.

Under these guidelines, manufacturing units of essential goods; food processing industries in rural areas; continuous process industries and their supply chain; manufacturing units of IT hardware and various other categories of industry will be allowed to function along with IT and ITeS services, which can utilise maximum 50 per cent of their human resources.
 

The guidelines have prescribed proper sanitisation of industrial premises, social distancing and random testing of workers as well as other precautionary measures recommended by the central and state governments.

Meanwhile, the state MSME department has also set up ‘revival and facilitation’ cell under the chairmanship of industries commissioner, supported by two joint commissioner level officials.

“The lockdown has definitely impacted all the industrial units and they are likely to face several irritants during and post lockdown period. As, the state government is sensitive to this matter, a cell has been instituted to resolve their grievances,” UP MSME principal secretary Navneet Sehgal said adding the necessary directives have already been issued.

The cell would work towards resolving the common issues pertaining to taking permissions from different departments, Goods and Services Tax (GST) refunds, no-objection certificates (NoC) etc. Besides, there could be other matters related to government procurement from the MSMEs, bank credit etc, which would also be tlooked into by the cell.