E-Paper
UP is taking key strides as an investment destination
The Global Investors Summit has generated tremendous excitement among local and global investors, and the state has already signed MoUs worth over ₹20 lakh crore
Uttar Pradesh (UP) is organising the Global Investors Summit in Lucknow from February 10 to 12. The summit has generated tremendous excitement among local and global investors, and the state has already signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) worth over ₹20 lakh crore. This reflects the significant confidence of business leaders in the state as their preferred investment destination. This is also proof of the state government’s unwavering focus for the last six years on development, ensuring effective law and order and developing a robust transport and logistics infrastructure for seamless connectivity through a network of expressways, highways, railways, waterways and airways. The state has capitalised on its demographic dividend to ensure an industry-ready workforce and leveraged the consumer base of over 240 million citizens. This has been augmented through a state-wide availability of an industrial land bank with best-in-class utilities, plug-and-play infrastructure, and a conducive ecosystem with ease of doing business.
India’s commitment to ease of doing business is evident from the scale of reforms undertaken since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is reflected in India’s meteoric rise in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019. To institutionalise this reform agenda at the state level, the department for the promotion of industry and internal trade, the Government of India rolled out the Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) to guide and rank states in the effectiveness of ease of doing business interventions across the investment life cycle.
UP made rapid strides in undertaking reforms related to ease of doing business and ease of living, which includes enablers for land and property, construction permits, labour regulation, environment clearances, various inspections, paying taxes and obtaining and utility permits. As a result, UP started its journey with a rank of 14 in BRAP 2016 and moved to second in BRAP 2019-2020. This was made possible by implementing over 600 unique business reforms, including introducing digital systems for eliminating physical touchpoints and ensuring transparency/real-time application tracking, risk-based and third-party inspections, and parallel sequential processing to reduce the timelines.
These initiatives have been supplemented by a comprehensive review to minimise the regulatory compliance burden for businesses and citizens, which include the reduction/simplification of 3,773 compliances in the last two years. Nine hundred and seven acts, regulations or rules of 27 departments have been abolished, and four key licence registration and 10 renewals from seven departments scrapped. Further, 27 types of renewals are now allowed on an automated basis, and five approvals are based on self-certification. The UP Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Act, 2020, allows 1,000 days to secure clearances to such enterprises after getting the certificate issued within 72 hours of receipt of the application. Also, 568 compliances have been decriminalised, and the compounding option has been introduced. The results are visible. The government’s holistic approach to governance has resulted in a high rank of the state in key indices, such as first rank in the Good Governance Index (2021) and second rank (among landlocked states) in the Export Preparedness Index (2021).
To facilitate the grounding of investment opportunities arising from implementing these holistic reforms, the State launched Nivesh Mitra – an online portal. This exemplifies the government’s priority on digitalisation for transforming the way it delivers services to its key stakeholders. Launched in February 2018 with 69 services of 20 departments, Nivesh Mitra has become one of the largest and most efficient single window portals and offers over 400 online clearances of 33 departments in the state.
During the Global Investors Summit, Invest UP 2.0 will be launched. This will digitalise the investment life cycle that includes Nivesh Sarathi to provide facilitation services/grievance redressal from intent/MoU signing to investment grounding; the Online Incentive Management System for processing, sanctioning and disbursement of incentives, and third, Udyami Mitra to provide in-person facilitation for high-value investors.
Yogi Adityanath has envisioned an aspirational goal of making the state a $1-trillion economy in five years. These reforms are steps in this direction through which UP will become a manufacturing and services hub for the nation and the world. All these initiatives and their impact on the state’s growth journey will be on display during the summit.
Durga Shanker Mishra is chief secretary of UP
The views expressed are personal
