Uttar Pradesh, the state with a population of more than 20 crores, has the existing capacity to become the “factory of the world”. Just like Silicon Valley emerged as the tech capital of the world and China became the global manufacturing hub in the last three decades, Uttar Pradesh can emerge as a global factory, thanks to the availability of cheap skilled and unskilled labour.
And the Yogi government is trying to make this dream possible. The state government has rolled out various incentives to capitalize on the rejig of the global supply chain and exit from China. The latest company to shift to Uttar Pradesh is Samsung which has completed the construction of the display manufacturing unit that is shifted from China to Noida.
Now the displays of Samsung, that are used in the company products as well as other consumer electronics players, will be manufactured in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The company’s facility in Noida, which is being expanded to accommodate display manufacturing, already employs more than 70,000 people and 50 lakh phones are manufactured every year. Now the production will double with around 1.2 crore phones every year, and these phones will be sold in India as well as other developing and developed countries.
India is the second-largest market for consumer electronics in terms of volume and this is the reason behind one after another company shifting its manufacturing base to Indian cities.
The Indian states have many advantages over China including a young demographic base and expanding market. Compared to the Chinese workforce which is now old and costly, the cost of labour is very cheap in Uttar Pradesh and also, very young with a median age of 21. On the other hand, the median age of China is 38 years while the cost of labour is 10 times more than that of Uttar Pradesh. Unfortunately, the state did not have an investment-friendly government before but with the arrival of Yogi, things have been moving rapidly.
The first thing Yogi fixed was the state’s fragile policing system. The government made a good investment in law enforcement and increased the budget by double digits. With the investment in law enforcement and political backing, many encounters of the criminals were carried out and the corrupt leaders who extorted money from industrialists were put behind bars.
With the improvement in law and order, policing system, and an active government chasing companies for investment, many national and international companies are coming to the state. As per a report by the Department of Industries of Uttar Pradesh, the state has received investments of 172 crores rupees per day in the last three years.
The total realized investment in the state in the last three years is around 1,88,000 crore rupees. The state received an investment of 6,700 crore rupees in the first half of this fiscal year, despite the pandemic induced lockdown. Companies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Japan, France, and several domestic companies made investments in the state in the last few months.
Uttar Pradesh has the existing capacity to replace China as the ‘factory of the world’ with a population of 22 crores and young demography. Unfortunately, the state has not had an investment-friendly government before, but under Yogi, things have been moving rapidly. The Yogi government must be applauded for transforming the state from a nightmare for industrialists to heaven for law-abiding companies. We are hopeful that these untiring efforts for the state might soon be fruitful.