UP chalks out plan for brand makeover

The axiom ‘better late than never’ truly fits the bill for Uttar Pradesh in its endeavour to woo investors. State industry interface ‘Udyog Bandhu’, which has long been tagged as ‘toothless’, is now seeking a professional makeover for itself and in the process ‘Brand UP’, after coming to terms with the fast changing business and economic reality.

While, UP is seeking private investment to the tune of Rs 200,000 crore and counting in various sectors, ‘Brand UP’ is yet to catch the fancy of the investor community as desired by the state mandarin.

While the state government has taken several policy initiatives to attract investment in sectors such as power, infrastructure, medical, health, tourism, transport, hospitality etc, barring a few flagship projects, others have failed to elicit encouraging response from the private sector.

Industry representatives and even senior government officials blame much on the image of UP vis-à-vis other industrialised states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka. Another bane of UP is that it is a landlocked state and therefore far from ports.

This needs to be seen in the context of such times, when different states are competing amongst each other to attract both domestic and foreign investments.

“Udyog Bandhu is an intermediary of all industrial sector stakeholders and is a problem solver. However, a need was felt for innovative ideas to come and strategy formulation to augment investment,” a senior industry department official told Business Standard.

The body has solicited bids from professional companies for ‘Strategy Formulation on Investment Promotion and Resolution of Issues of Entrepreneurs’. The government aims at improving ‘Brand UP’ and identifying thrust areas/sectors for faster industrial development, beside instituting better coordination and grievance redress mechanism for industry.

Udyog Bandhu functions under the state industrial development department and is currently headed by the UP infrastructure and industrial development commissioner (IIDC) V N Garg.

The selected bidder would be expected to submit its comprehensive report within five months. The final date for submission of technical and financial bids has been set as October 11, when the technical bids would be opened. The financial bids would be opened on October 14.

The state has conceded that delay in solving problems of entrepreneurs results in industries losing out to competition and lack of knowledge about government incentives adds to this. To overcome this, Udyog Bandhu intends to formulate a strategy on two major areas of operation such as investment promotion and resolving of issues.

Sources said in the recent pre-bid meeting, representatives of Ernst & Young were also present, besides two other companies.

The main points of the study would to conduct a SWOT analysis on industrial scenario, define thrust areas/sectors for investment promotion, strategy for timely setting up of units by entrepreneurs, strategy to promote investment promotional activities viz. seminars/workshops), strategy for bringing new investment and improving the image of state as investor friendly destination.