Uttar Pradesh government will launch industrial and infrastructure projects totalling Rs 1 lakh crore in the next two months and ground-breaking ceremony for projects worth Rs 50,000 crore across different sectors will be conducted this month. The government has also announced that the policy for opening the agriculture sector for the organised retail industry will be formulated soon and also the policy for the electric vehicles.
Industries Minister Satish Mahana on Saturday reviewed the preparation for the second ground-breaking ceremony to be held this month. He said so far 340 MW of power had been made available to entrepreneurs under the open access regime where they could buy power from any power generator. He said the government was in the process of formulating a new policy for the service sector for promoting investment in this sector. The minister, addressing a meeting of investors and officers of the department, directed that NOC of fire safety and other regulatory approvals be issued from the single window portal ‘Nivesh Mitra’.
The projects to be launched during the ground-breaking ceremony in December and next month are part of the Rs 4.68 lakh crore worth of memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with public and private sector companies during the UP Investors’ Summit on February 21-22 this year. On July 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone of projects worth Rs 60,000 crore.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been busy campaigning in poll-bound states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh over the past few week, on Tuesday night reviewed the progress of projects lined up for the second ground-breaking ceremony slated for the second week of December in Lucknow.
According to sources, the CM expressed displeasure over the slow pace of follow-up for these projects. Earlier, the state government had announced it would lay the foundation of projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore in December. However, now it will be near impossible to achieve this target due to pending land acquisition and other clearances hurdles.
The CM directed senior officials to ensure that the preliminary grounds works were completed and projects of Rs 50,000 crore were launched in December. Another ground-breaking ceremony will be organised in February 2019 to launch projects totalling Rs 50,000 crore .
Modi will be invited for these ground-breaking ceremonies as well in order to provide a platform to the ruling Bharatiya Janata party government for amplifying its self-acclaimed pro-industry, development and employment agenda before the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha poll to defeat the spectre of a joint Opposition and anti-incumbency.