Work in progress for import substitution, says Uttar Pradesh govt

The Uttar Pradesh government is working towards import substitution to bolster the domestic industrial landscape and create mass job opportunities, which the state says would help it become a billion-trillion economy.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had recently asked the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) department to identify top merchandise imports, which could be substituted with indigenous manufacturing and production in the state.

During the financial year 2021-22, the state clocked merchandise imports worth more than Rs 55,000 crore via dry ports (railway and road cargo terminals directly linked with domestic seaports).

The government has identified 95 items comprising the import basket. Of these, four dozen items account for impo­rted value ranging from Rs 100 to over Rs 10,000 crore. These include industrial and engineering products, chemical, minerals, precious stones, agricultural/food processing items.

“The government will prepare a blueprint for manufacturing these industrial produc­ts and commodities in the state itself,” Additional Chief Secr­etary (MSME and export promotion) Navneet Sehgal said.

Major import items include electrical and electronic products, power transformers and generators, IT/computer hardware, edible oils, fish oil, castor oil, soybean oil, thermal power plant machinery and equipment, aluminium/iron/ste­el/copper alloys and products, organic chemicals, jewellery, precious stones, etc.

According to sources, electrical and electronics products topped the state import chart last year with Rs 10,200 crore worth of shipments. It was followed by import of different kinds of edible oils and power plant equipment.

While the state is aiming to promote the industrial and manufacturing landscape for import substitution, the government would encourage farmers to cultivate pulses and edible oil crops for paring the large annual import bill apart from higher farm income.

The government has announced plans to develop an ‘Electronics City’ spread over 700 acres in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority. This is in the vicinity of the proposed Jewar International Airport in Greater Noida.

The mega export-oriented project will comprise manufacturing clusters dedicated to the IT and electronics majors of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Each of the three country-specific clusters would be allotted about 200 acres of land with the government providing a plethora of incentives for investment in the clusters.

Meanwhile, the UP government is expecting an investment of about Rs 40,000 crore in the Electronics City and become a template for similar mega industrial corridors in the pipeline.