Mulayam woos investment to prove WB wrong

LUCKNOW: Bugged by the World Bank report, the Mulayam government is now making food processing its new USP to woo small and medium entrepreneurs for attracting investments into Uttar Pradesh.
Growing investment and interest shown by entrepreneurs in food processing industry during 2003-04 seems to have caught the attention of the state government. In 2003-04, about Rs 103.55 crore were invested against a paltry Rs 5.80 crore in 2002-03.
Emboldened by the response, the government has decided to offer sops to the food processing industry, in addition to the IT sector.The state government has already setup a state nodal agency to speed up processing of files, take up grants-in-aid cases with the Centre and to redress problems being faced by new entrepreneurs. The food processing policy is almost ready and is likely to be announced next month.
The agency was successful in getting clearance from the Ministry of Food Processing Industry (MFPI) for setting up 17 major units all over the state in 2003-2004 involving an investment of over Rs 100 crore. The Centre, which gives grants-in-aid up to a maximum of 25 per cent, has already released an amount of Rs 11.40 crore as the Central subsidy to setup these units.
The state government now plans to use this for proving the World Bank report wrong. The WB report had pointed that 81 per cent of industrialists outside the state found investment climate ''worse'' in UP.
The report had also pointed out that majority of new private investment and foreign investment was restricted to only one district of the state i.e Ghaziabad (Noida). In other words, Noida continued to be the ''preferred'' destination of investors while the flow was almost negligible in Bundelkhand, eastern and central UP.
That is not the case now, claims a senior bureaucrat, adding that out of 17, as many as eight food processing units are being setup in Central and Eastern UP. Prominent among them are Indo-Pro Soya Foods in Kanpur with an investment of Rs 6.35 crore and Amroon Foods Pvt Ltd coming up in Bara Banki with an investment of Rs 11.40 crore.
"Our thrust is to channelise investments into all parts of the state for an overall development. The response is encouraging as majority of investment inflow is into districts where investors would earlier dare not go," points Anil Swarup, secretary food processing.
Out of 13 units sanctioned by the MPFI for 2004-05, nine are being setup in Kanpur, Farrukhabad, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Bareilly, Chandauli, Fatehpur and Aligarh. "This shows that the pattern of investments is gradually shifting as small and medium entrepreneurs prefer these destinations, if offered more sops and guaranteed law and order," claims Swarup.