Make in India: UP now home to innovative business ideas
Adityanath have clearly established UP as a State where entrepreneurship and innovations and investors are promoted in new areas.
Lucknow: The interest in innovative and unconventional business ideas in the recently-held ground breaking ceremony-3 in Lucknow is seen as emergence of Uttar Pradesh as a business and industry-friendly state, where out-of-the-box ideas can flourish.
In the GBC-3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the ceremony where more than 1400 projects worth Rs 80,000 crores were implemented in the presence of industry and business luminaries such as Gautam Adani, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Niranjan Hiranandani, Matthew Eyries, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and others.
The significant aspect of the successful ceremony was the choice of UP as the source of innovations to power the Make in India initiative.
A sizable part of UP’s population is of young people who are eager to put their novel ideas into practice, and recent policy drives and swift decision-making approach of the State Government under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have clearly established UP as a State where entrepreneurship and innovations and investors are promoted in new areas.
Around 85% of the total number of 1,406 projects are in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) category (less than Rs 50 Crore investment), while most mega investments are coming up in sunrise sectors like Data Centre (25%). Other investments are in the sectors like Agri & allied (14%), IT & Electronics (10%), Infrastructure (8.2%), Manufacturing (8%), Handloom & Textile (7%), Renewable Energy (6%), etc. spread across regions viz. Pashchimanchal (73%), Purvanchal (12%), Madhyanchal (11%) and Bundelkhand region (4%).
Among instances of this exciting change is the interest shown in manufacturing of drones/ UAVs, propelled by the upcoming Defence Industrial Corridor. Startups like NewSpace Research and Technologies Pvt Ltd, Allen & Alvan Pvt Ltd. have chosen Uttar Pradesh as their destination for setting up High Altitude Pseudo Satellite UAVs, Air launched Flexible/ Heavy lift drones and Drone security system projects at Aligarh.
Similarly, various air separation plants have come up across Uttar Pradesh after there has been a huge surge in demand for oxygen in the State during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The State Government proactively launched Oxygen Production Promotion Policy in May 2021 to attract investments in the sector, which provided lucrative incentives such as Capital Subsidy up to 100% of investment and Stamp Duty reimbursement.
In all, seven projects worth Rs 500 crores have been felicitated at GBC-3 for setting up plants to manufacture oxygen and other industrial gases. Some notable investors include- France based Air Liquide investing Rs 300 Crores and INOX Air Products investing Rs 150 Crores. Likewise, other innovative projects such as Addverb Technologies’ investment worth Rs 500 Crores for developing Robotics and Warehouse Automation technology and NTPC’s two Floating Solar Power projects 20 MW each were also part of GBC-3.
This is an indication of the business-friendly policies of UP government, helping the state move ahead from traditional and conventional manufacturing and business areas, into ideas that belong to the future.