To boost industrialisation, Yogi government to set up 'Invest UP'

UP to replicate Invest India and Gujarat's iNDEXb models

Targetting to hit the trillion dollar economy mark by 2024, Uttar Pradesh has planned to set up a special wing to attract private investment and accelerate industrialisation in the state.

‘Invest UP’ will replicate the investment promotion models of Invest India and iNDEXb functioning at the Centre and Gujarat respectively.

“We are in the process of setting up something like Invest India. The proposal is in serious discussions and hopefully the chief minister will take a call in this regard,” UP MSME and export promotion minister Sidharth Nath Singh told Business Standard here.

He said while Invest UP would be mandated for attracting fresh investments, the state government’s existing industry interface Udyog Bandhu would look after the grounding of these investment proposals.

“Both these agencies will have their specific task cut out. Invest UP will basically work in the pattern of iNDEXb of Gujarat,” he noted.

An ISO 9001-2015 certified organisation, Industrial Extension Bureau – popularly known as iNDEXTb – is an entity set up by the Gujarat government with the objective of accelerating the state’s industrial development. It acts as a single point contact for entrepreneurs for establishing industrial ventures. Besides, the Bureau facilitates the Gujarat industries department in propagating industrial promotional policies, attracting industrial investment, organising events, seminars, industrial fairs etc.

Since, the Yogi Adityanath government is also planning to host a ‘Global Investors’ Summit’ in October-November 2020 to position UP as an ideal investment destination internationally, the roadmap for Invest UP assumes greater significance.

Besides, the state government is also hard selling its defence manufacturing agenda, especially in the context of the upcoming mega UP Defence Corridor and the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) worth Rs 50,000 crore with top defence manufacturers at the recently concluded DefExpo 2020 in Lucknow.

Earlier, the global Summit was tentatively fixed for February 2020, however, the state decided to postpone the show owing to the DefExpo during February 5-8, 2020, in which more than 200 MoUs were signed.

In run up to the global Summit, the state government plans to organise roadshows in all the major industrialised nations, viz. USA, the UK, Russia, UAE, the Netherlands, China, Canada, France etc.

According to sources, the government is eyeing to garner investment proposals to the tune of Rs 10 trillion at the global Summit. “We would obviously be looking at attracting maximum participation of investors and industries at our global Summit,” UP industrial development minister Satish Mahana had earlier said.

At the UP Investors Summit in February 2018, the state government had signed MoUs worth Rs 4.68 trillion with different public and private sector companies, of which foundation of industrial and infrastructure projects totalling more than Rs 1.25 trillion have already been laid, while other projects are said to be in the pipeline across different sectors.