LUCKNOW: Within 24 hours of the announcement of the economic package by the Centre, the Yogi Adityanath government gave a major boost to the MSME sector by distributing loans worth Rs 2002 crore to around 57,000 entrepreneurs in one go through a loan fair on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in another major step towards energising industrial activities in the state, the UP government has set up a dedicated panel to tap investment by firms from US, South Korea and Japan.
UP has become the first state to provide loans to such a large number of entrepreneurs in a short span of time during the lockdown period. As per an estimate, with this loan to over 57,000 entrepreneurs, jobs to over 2 lakh people have been guaranteed. On this occasion, the Chief Minister also launched the ‘sathi’ portal of MSMEs in UP which houses the largest number of MSME units in the country.
In the meantime, to reboot the industry by wooing new investment in the state post-lockdown, the UP government set up a panel headed by the Pradeshiya Industrial & Investment Corporation of UP (PICUP) managing director to capitalise on current investor sentiment as various companies are planning to shift base out of China and are looking towards India as a potential investment destination.
Earlier, the state government had taken a slew of measures right from relaxing the labour laws to according industry status to the warehousing and logistics sector to ramp up industrial activity and give the economy a boost.
As per sources, the other members of the newly-formed panel, set up by UP infrastructure & industrial development commissioner (IIDC) Alok Tandon, include NOIDA additional chief executive officer (CEO) and two officials of state industry interface Udyog Bandhu as nominated members.
According to official sources in the infrastructure and industrial development department, the panel would attract and facilitate investment from South Korea, Japan and the US.
Firms from these countries could invest in MSMEs, food processing, automobiles, IT and electronics, auto-components, defence and big infrastructure projects, said sources.
A new mechanism has been devised to use this situation as an opportunity. Three different email ids viz. southkoreahelpdesk@udyogbandhu.com, japanhelpdesk@udyogbandhu.com and ushelpdesk@udyogbandhu.com have been put out for investors from South Korea, Japan and the US to share their issues.
These emails will be monitored by panel members for speedy resolution of issues under the overall guidance of senior officials of the state industrial development department.
So far, UP micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and export promotion minister Siddharth Nath Singh and other senior officials had interacted through webinar with groups of leading industrialists and investors from the US, South Korea, Japan and Thailand.