<div>Akhilesh Yadav-led government of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday (10 September) signed investment intentions worth Rs 33,000 crore from more than top 40 companies in India’s financial capital Mumbai.</div><div> </div><div>Among the companies that signed up with the state government include ITC, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Toshiba Power, LG Electronics, Indo-Gulf Fertilizer, Amulya Sanchay, Godrej Agrovet, Kanodia Group, among others.</div><div> </div><div>The investments have a potential of generating almost 150,000 jobs in the state. The largest interest worth Rs 13,405 crores came from infrastructure, followed by Rs 6,630 crore from food and agro processing sector, manufacturing Rs 6,150 crore, power Rs 3,400 crore and electronics Rs 1,578 crore.</div><div> </div><div>The state plans to build another IT Park in Lucknow, and is keen to attract investment to manufacturing, solar power, IT, electronics, road projects and biomass.</div><div> </div><div>At a conference organised in Mumbai to attract investment for the state, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said the state was keen to convert 14 cities as smart cities. It was also building metro rail services in capital Lucknow, besides Allahabad, Varanasi, Meerut, Agra, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Noida, among others.</div><div> </div><div>Besides top industrialists, Hindi movie producer Boney Kapoor, director Anurag Kashyap, Muzzaffer Ali, Sanjay Khan were among the scores of Bollywood personalities who vowed to use Uttar Pradesh facilities for their future ventures.</div><div> </div><div>The state is also likely to announce a film subsidy scheme under which the state will give a support of up to Rs 3 crore to producers shooting a film in the state.</div><div> </div><div>The state provided easy acquisition policy of land and this could be highlighted by the sanctioning of 326 km expressway between Agra and Lucknow and quick acquisition of land.</div><div> </div><div>The state acquired about 16 lakh HP laptops, which is a high in the country. It also helped open the maximum number of bank accounts for the impoverished. The state is the largest producer of wheat, milk, sugar, potato among scores of others and provides a ready market for daily consumption of 2 crore eggs, he said. It is the second largest producer of rice, bajra and vegetables.</div><div> </div><div>Uttar Pradesh has the country’s third largest economy after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, and is a market for 15 percent of India’s food and non-food produce. </div><div> </div><div>Over the past couple of years, states including Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have held similar efforts to attract investment to their respective states.</div><div> </div>
