Yogi govt sets up investment promotion board in UP

Leading industrialists inducted as members

To accelerate industrialisation and attract investment, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has set up a State Investment Promotion Board.

Leading industrialists have been inducted as members of the Board. The setting up of the Board was among the promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its UP poll manifesto.

While, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the chairman of the Investment Promotion Board it would, among others, comprise 11 industrialists as members representing different industrial sectors.

These include Jagdish Khattar (Carnation Auto), Pankaj Patel (Zydus Cadila), Kulin Lalbhai (Arvind Mills), Ajay Shriram (Shriram Group), U S Bhartia (India Glycols), Tarun Sahni (Triveni Group), Lalit Khaitan (Radico Khaitan), Shishir Jaipuriya (Ginni Filaments), Samir Gupta (Jackson Group), L K Jhunjhunwala (KM Sugar Mills) and Vinay Kumar (Banaras Hotel). UP industry minister would be its vice-chairman.

The Board would also comprise as members, UP finance minister, power minister, infrastructure and industrial development commissioner (IIDC), agricultural production commission (APC), additional chief secretaries of the departments of industry, finance, power, revenue, tax and home, besides Pradeshiya Industrial and Investment Corporation of UP (PICUP) MD.

The Board is mandated to create a conducive investment climate in the state, rationalisation of procedures and labour reforms for generating employment opportunities. It would also collaborate with reputed institutions and consultants for promoting ‘Brand UP’ among the industrialist and investment community in India and abroad.

At the same time, the body would prepare the blueprint for boosting investment and industrialisation at the local level and promoting region specific traditional crafts and industries. It would work with partners to accelerate IT sector and attract companies to set up their units.

As the first major task, the Board would prepare an action plan for ensuring the success of the proposed Lucknow global investors meet in February 2018.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, heads of a few South Asian countries, apart from the ambassadors of foreign countries would be invited to the two-day high octane summit.

UP had already implemented its new industrial policy, apart from new policies in several other sectors to spur private investment and create a pro-business environment.

Last week ambassadors of Netherlands and Thailand had also called upon Yogi in Lucknow and discussed investment opportunities. The two countries are keen to partner UP for business tie-ups in sectors, including dairy, poultry, agriculture etc.

At the same time, the Yogi government has been proactively making policy changes to improve its ease of doing rankings among the league of Indian states. Under the previous Akhilesh Yadav regime, UP had last year slipped in the Ease of Doing Business table from 10th in 2015 to the 14th spot. The state had lost out primarily due to stiff competition among the peer states and the top states improving their score by even greater margins than UP. The government is striving to re-enter the Top 10 bracket in this regard.

On November 1, Yogi had toured the island nation of Mauritius to woo the Non-Resident Indians (NRI) community to invest in the state.

Last month, a high-level delegation comprising representatives of US companies, including Boeing, Adobe, Facebook, Uber, Honeywell, Coca-Cola, Mastercard, P&G, Oracle, GE Health, Monsanto, Medtronic, Cargill, Azure etc had arrived in Lucknow to meet Yogi and explore investment opportunities in a variety of sectors. The visit was organised under the aegis of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF).

After coming to power on March 19, ambassadors and high commissions of several countries, including Israel and Japan had called upon Yogi and discussed the wide range of issues, including investment.