by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Business Summit, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Corporate Governance, Emerging Businesses, Events, Investing, News, Politics
Lucknow : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced that the government would establish a defence industrial production corridor in Uttar Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore that would also generate 250,000 jobs.
“I am making an important announcement. In this year’s budget, we had announced that we will establish two defence industrial production corridors. One of them will be in Uttar Pradesh,” Modi said addressing the ‘Investors Meet’ here.
The event organised by the Yogi Adityanath government is aimed to showcase the investment opportunities in the state. Corporate honchos are attending the summit.
The Prime Minister said the decision was taken keeping in mind the developmental requirements of Bundelkhand region.
The corridor will link Agra, Aligarh, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi and Chitrakoot, he said.
The government had earlier announced that it would develop two such corridors. The first of the two runs between Chennai and Bengaluru – connecting Kattupalli port, Chennai, Tiruchi, Coimbatore and Hosur.
Modi also praised the Uttar Pradesh government for curbing red tape and rolling out red carpet for investors and taking decisions that have linked industrial development with employment generation.
“There is no dearth of resources and opportunities in Uttar Pradesh where you find ‘Lucknowi chikankari’, ‘Banarsi zardosi’, brassware of Moradabad and glassware industries of Firozabad,” Modi said.
He also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to compete with Maharashtra in achieving a target of one trillion dollar economy.
“I set this challenge before Uttar Pradesh to compete with Maharashtra and let us see who will become the first trillion dollar economy,” he said.
He said Uttar Pradesh today was the number one state in the production of grains, wheat, sugarcane, milk and potatoes in the whole country.
It is also the second largest producer of fruits and third largest producer of vegetables in the country.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Events, Investing, Markets, News, Politics, Startup Basics
Lucknow : A robot created by a group of students engaged in a startup will welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inaugural session of the “Investors Meet” here on Wednesday, an official said on Tuesday.
The Special Protection Group (SPG) has given clearance for the proposal mooted by the organisers of the mega event. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has already seen a presentation of the robot, an official said.
The robot will greet the Prime Minister and other dignitaries by saying “Athithi Devo Bhava” (guests are gods) and by gifting them a rose bud. The robot can speak English and Hindi and has been created by an engineer of Lucknow Milind Raj and his team. The robot identifies persons through their retina scan and can be used in emergencies such as fires, the makers informed.
It can be operated both manually and automatically. Prime Minister Modi will arrive at the Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport at Amausi in a special Indian Air Force (IAF) plane, after which his cavalcade will drive straight to the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan in Gomtinagar where he will first view an exhibition and then address investors, industrialists, officials, ministers and other lawmakers.
He is later scheduled to have tea with select industrialists like Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani and others.
Security has been beefed up in the state capital ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit. More than two dozen envoys from over a dozen countries will also take part in the mega two-day event, which is aimed at attracting investment for the state.
President Ram Nath Kovind will be attending the valedictory session on Thursday.
More than two dozen chartered flights are scheduled to land at the airport and over 100 luxury cars including a fleet of Mercedes cars have been booked by the state government for the VIP guests.
All hotels are chock-a-block with investors and Chief Minister Adityanath is hosting a dinner for some 155 top CEOs at his 5-Kalidas Marg official residence on Tuesday night.
More than 900 MoUs have been signed between investors and the state government in various sectors like skill development, IT, food processing and agro-industries, among others, officials said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Business Summit, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Events, Finance, Investing, Markets, News, Politics, SMEs
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : The eleven-month-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh is pulling out all stops to make the UP Investors Meet on February 21-22 a grand success and a spectacle to remember — with promises to bring in investments of Rs 1 lakh crore (about $15 billion).
The government machinery in the state capital is on overdrive — over 1,000 rooms have been booked in plush five- and four-star properties, four different menus of seven-course meals have been finalised, over 2,500 policemen have been requisitioned for the VVIP gathering and a fleet of dozens of cars has been booked.
That’s not all. Gallons of paint have been sanctioned to spruce up the road sides, roads are being relaid, the entire route to be taken by the guests has been lit up with LED lights. Murals of prominent city monuments are being painted on the walls of flyovers, new greenery is being planted and more than a dozen bureaucrats are burning the midnight oil to make the event a mega success.
With President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley flying into the city for the two-day jamboree, the bureaucracy and the state government are trying to finalise the minutest of details and to ensure that the state is showcased in the best of ways to attract maximum investment.
A Who’s Who of the business world, including Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, and top executives from majors like Cadila, Mahindra and Mahindra, Torrent and Essel, have confirmed their attendance at the event, which is aimed at hard-selling the state which for years has had promises made but negligible investments.
A war room has been created at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhavan where dozens of bureaucrats, assisted by top company executives, are working “almost 24×7” to ensure that the loose ends are tied before the mega event. Alok Pandey, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer on deputation to Uttar Pradesh, who is also the nodal officer for the investors meet, informed IANS that “almost every day, all officials involved leave the war room only around midnight”. Other top bureaucrats involved are being led by Industrial and Infrastructure Development Commissioner (IIDC) Anoop Chandra Pandey and Principal Secretary Navneet Sehgal and many more.
Sources told IANS that MoUs for more than Rs 1 lakh crore investment have been signed and would be exchanged on the inaugural day in the presence of the Prime Minister.
The Adani group has shown its willingness to set up a Mega Logistics Hub in the NCR (National Capital Region). It has also offered to set up a private university in the NCR and the mandarins in the state government are scurrying for land for these projects. Some 1,000 acres have been offered in Bulandshahr, neighboring the NCR, and to show its seriousness to investors, the state government has also sent a proposal to the Union government to expand the NCR up to Bulandshahr, an official said.
The IIDC Pandey told IANS that the “state government is determined like never before to get investments and to ensure that the investors get the best possible facilities in return”. It is for the first time in the state that sector-wise policies are being made under the Investment and Employment Promotion Policy, officials said. With the state and the Centre ruled by the BJP, the “seriousness and convertibility of promises looks tempting”, averred a senior bureaucrat.
“There have been similar events by predecessor governments on a smaller scale, but with very little returns. This is possibly the last chance for the state to salvage its image as a promising destination for investment and to sell all that it has,” Kiron Chopra, a prominent city industrialist, pointed out, adding it should not be just to invite people with no deliverables.
A private PR company has been hired to handle the promotions and social media, and its staff is stationed at the war room to ensure that every event — like the five road shows in various cities of the country — are telecast live on social media and all pictures and news related to the event are posted on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
The opposition is, however, unimpressed. Chief spokesman of the main opposition Samajwadi Party Rajendra Chowdhary said “public money is being wasted” by the BJP government to “hide its failures in the 11 months of its rule in the state and four years at the Centre”.
He further accused the Yogi Adityanath government of trying to hoodwink the people with such grand events even as the state suffers from poor law and order, soaring crime and distress among the farmers.
Stuti Kaul, an old Lucknowite, however, is less cynical and more optimistic. She is happy that the city is being spruced up like never in the past and pats the BJP government for “at least trying”.
Whether the results of the mega event will show up or not is up to the future. It’s wait and watch till then as the state, for now, soaks itself in the spirit of the investors meet.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
