[1]Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav today announced a slew of measures for development of infrastructure including setting up of two new airports and a Rs 23,000 crore package to upgrade state highways.
The chief minister also called on the domestic and foreign investors to take advantage of the investment opportunities being offered by the state.
“We realise that we need to upgrade infrastructure in the state to facilitate industry. We have an ambitious plan to invest Rs 23,000 crore for upgrading state highways. We have drawn up plans to construct a new expressway linking Lucknow and Agra and to connect all district headquarters with four lane highways”, Yadav said at a session titled ‘UP-unlimited opportunities’ at the CII’s global partnership summit here.
The state government, he said, proposes to develop two new airports near Agra and Kushinagar under public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
“We will partner with the Central government to leverage the eastern dedicated freight corridor projects to create massive investment zones. PPP will be a key plank for executing many large infrastructure projects,” he added.
On skill development, Yadav said the state government proposes to set up two new IITs.
“Our aim is that the youth of the State are provided skill training to improve their employability and to improve productivity across sectors. We will partner with the industry to ensure that skills that are to be imparted are relevant and updated,” he added.
The state, he said, had launched a new policy for IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) sector with a view to promote Tier 2 and 3 cities as IT destinations.
“UP has the highest number of youth in the country. We have a vision to harness this demographic dividend. So we have initiated a scheme to distribute 26 lakh desk top PCs and 15 lakh laptops to students in schools,” he said.
The state will also formulate specific policies for sectors like food processing, poultry, IT, sugar and solar power, he said. The state government has set up high-power committees to expedite projects, he said, adding “we are committed to provide an investor friendly business environment which is marked by transparency and speedy decision making and approvals”.
The chief minister provided the prospective investors details of the new infrastructure and industrial investment policy. “The policy lays down a large number of fiscal incentives. For mega projects of more than Rs 500 crore investment, we are willing to even enlarge these incentives,” he added.
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