UP Govt. assures investors over incentives under the policies

The UP government assured investors of maintaining consistency in investor-friendly policies and new units would continue to get incentives as promised under the policy. 

The government clarified its stance after potential investors in pharmaceutical sector raised the issue. They had signed MOUs for investment in UP during `UP Investor’s Summit’ in Lucknow in February.

During the last 15 years of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party regimes in UP, the state witnessed frequent change in policies with the change in guard. 

Investors have now demanded a stable policy regime for actually realising the dream of making UP, the most favoured destination for investors.

Top private companies including Tata Motors had claimed that they were denied benefits of capital subsidy promised by the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime (2004-07) after Mayawati government came to power (2007-12). 

Same was the fate of Sugarcane Industry policy announced by Mulayam Singh Yadav, which was later revoked by Mayawati government in 2007. The sugar industry won a protracted battle from Allahabad High Court which recently restored the policy.

While announcing UP Pharmaceutical Industry Policy 2018, the Yogi government said that any prospective amendment in the policy would not withdraw incentives provided under the existing policy framework. Besides, only the cabinet headed by Chief Minister has been authorised to effect any changes in the policy.

The new Pharmaceutical policy recently approved by the cabinet has been modelled after studying the policies of Gujarat, Odisha and Telengana for their successes. Official sources said that there was huge potential for private investments in the sector.

Currently, UP accounts for about 18% of India’s total pharma market and the Yogi government wants to establish the state as a major pharmaceutical hub in North India. 

The annual pharmaceutical market in UP is estimated at Rs 9,000 crore. The state has seen pharma exports register 42% growth from Rs 300 crore in 2015-16 to over Rs 500 crore in 2016-17. The annual turnover of the Indian pharma industry in 2015-16 stood at Rs 2 Lakh crore a growth of 29%.

The new policy would encourage innovation in pharma sector by seed funding start-ups under ‘UP Start up Policy, 2017’. It would fund incubators at educational institutions, medical colleges and universities.

During the Investors Summit, 2018 in Lucknow in February, the healthcare sector attracted investment proposals worth almost Rs 1,000 croe out of a total of Rs 4.68 Lakh crore worth of MoUs signed with public and private companies across sectors.

In UP, 450 pharmaceutical units are clustered in Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida), Lucknow and Kanpur. Besides, there are about 76,000 pharmacists and 71,000 retail pharmacies in the state, indicating the potential of the sector.