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Written by Pranav Mukul, Aashish Aryan, Prabha Raghavan, Aanchal Magazine | New Delhi | Updated: August 4, 2020 10:44:23 am Many of them are now realising that the rural economy has hit a saturation point and cannot absorb more workers.

A key bellwether of activity in the manufacturing sector slipped in July after two months of steady growth reflecting the adverse impact of localised lockdowns by states to fight the surging Covid curve. For those who lost their jobs, this fresh metric three months into the lockdown PMI falling to 46 in July from 47.2 in June is a disquieting reminder that a return to normalcy, or even a sustainable uptick, is far away.

More so for the thousands, who because of job losses or lacking a safety net if infected, moved from metros and urban industrial hubs to their hometowns and villages. Many of them are now realising that the rural economy has hit a saturation point and cannot absorb more workers.

Take Chittranjan Kushwaha.

The first in his family to hold a diploma in engineering, 30-year old Kushwaha went to Pune in 2014 and found an assembly line job with a major auto-component maker. Earning a monthly average of Rs 21,000, he was laid off in the lockdown and so returned to his family in Kushinagar, eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Opinion| Despite govt claims, migrants continue to be vulnerable and abandoned

Unlike many, Kushwaha got lucky: his diploma helped him get a job at a Common Service Centre (CSC) but at less than one third of his Pune salary.

His expenses are down as he doesnt have to pay rent but the drastic cut in income means he has to cut several corners. One big casualty: his childrens education.

After schools closed, I paid fees for a month. After that I got them de-registered. How will I pay Rs 1500 for three kids? he said.

Kushwahas case is emblematic of the crisis that has hit a majority of those who returned. Their scale is sweeping.

Official records show that of the 64 lakh migrant workers across 116 districts in six states Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha (covered under the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan), a quarter returned to just 17 districts across these states.

The highest number of returned migrants under the scheme has been registered for Bihar, with 32 districts accounting for 23.6 lakh or 37.2 per cent of the total migrant workers covered, followed by Uttar Pradesh, with 17.47 lakh returned workers (27.5 per cent of the total) and Madhya Pradesh with 10.71 lakh workers or 16.9 per cent of the total.

Read| Rs 50,000-crore scheme to provide jobs for migrants returning home

The progress of the monsoon and a good summer sowing notwithstanding, the surge in Covid-19 case numbers in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh is beginning to hurt the rural economy and so most of these workers are struggling to make ends meet.

The reduction in disposable income for many families comes on the top of an already increased household savings a metric that indicates people start saving more than they spend to cover themselves in situations like job losses or pay cuts, which, in turn, is an indicator of a slump in the economy.

RBI records show net financial savings went up to 7.7% of GDP in 2019-20, compared with 7.2% in 2018-19.

This improvement has occurred due to moderation in household bank borrowings being sharper than that in bank deposits, except in the fourth quarter of 2019-20 due to COVID-19 related economic disruptionsSeveral studies show that households tend to save more during a slowdown and income uncertainty, the RBI noted.

Explained| Half of 30 lakh workers who returned to UP are unskilled, MNREGA the main avenue for jobs so far

Job opportunities, few and far between, for those who have returned home are largely coming from public setups. A number of states, including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have rolled out migrant labour employment schemes, in addition to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA).

In all of the 116 districts covered under the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, the number of households availing MGNREGA work in these districts jumped to 89.83 lakh during May 86.27 per cent up from 48.22 lakh in the same month last year.

However, despite these efforts, several are still struggling to find a job.Companies such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Indias biggest carmakers, have been ramping up output but are largely relying on local workers since those from UP and Bihar are yet to return.

Deepak Kumar from Dhagar in Bhiwani district is among those who has queued up at Marutis Manesar factory over the past few days. With the facility restoring output to near normal levels, Kumar and other ITI diploma-holders from nearby towns in Haryana many have prior work experience here have responded to calls to return.

My hope is that even if they keep me as a temporary employee, they should not ask me to leave soon, Kumar said. Until he got the call, he said, he was unemployed and working on a farm.

Similar is the plight of Santosh Kumar, 32, from Dinapatti village in Supaul, Bihar. He ran errands at a small aviation logistics company in Mumbai but went back to his village in May in a three-wheeler auto-rickshaw along with three other persons.

Right now there is a lockdown, how can I go back. I am relying on farming for survival in my village, he said.

When will his company resume operations is anybodys guess. While in the Centres financial package, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were among the main intended beneficiaries, these are yet to recover from the impact.

According to a survey by CARE Ratings conducted over two weeks from June 23 to July 7, one-third of the MSMEs faced revenue losses of over 50% in the last 3 months and over 60% have been unable to pay full salaries to their staff.

Santosh said he received the cash transfer of Rs 1,000 from the government and also got Rs 300 a day during the quarantine. The ration supplies are procured by the family through his fathers ration card as he is yet to get a ration card in his name. Santosh said he would like to return whenever his employer calls him back. That call could take longer now.

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July harder than June, migrants out of work hit economic wall at home - The Indian Express

Recently in Singapore, several migrant workers attempted suicide at their dormitories, with at least one death. According to the authorities, some of them did so because they failed to get employers permission to leave the city after purchasing flight tickets (in Singapore, a migrant workers work permit is tied to the employer, and the employer usually keeps the workers passport, and has the authority to cancel the permit and repatriate the worker). Fortunately, most of the suicide attempts were averted by officers on site, and some of the migrants eventually made their journey home. Their ordeal won this group great amount of attention and sympathy in Singapore, where attempted suicide was only decriminalised as recently as January.

For the 323,000 migrant workers who live in shared dormitories in Singapore, earning money before going home has always been their top dream, while making headlines for attempting suicide is certainly not something they would have seen coming. The sudden hardships of 2020 have changed everything.

Migrant workers from countries such as China, Bangladesh and India are a major force powering the Singaporean economy, from building the city-states glittering skyscrapers to cleaning its gleaming shopping centres, yet they have been metaphorically and literally the invisible. They live in high-density dormitories in the islands far-flung outskirts and commute to and from work packed into the backs of trucks. Even in my own few years being based periodically in Singapore, my exposure to this community is still limited.

This prosperous first-world island nation had been a success story in the global battle against coronavirus, until the outbreak brought attention to the predicament of its vulnerable low-wage foreign labourers.

The first time I encountered their story was back in 2016, when a journalism fellowship program took us to a sprawling dormitory complex. I noticed the warnings posted at the entrance listing all sorts of infringements the labourers could be fined for. We were told the residents there had behaved quite well. The dormitory room we went into accommodated 12 men and was stuffy and frowzy in the summer-all-year tropical city. Island-wide, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers lived in this type of dormitory.

I talked to one worker who came from Chinas hinterland and had been working there for a few years. He didnt complain at all about the living or working conditions, and was proud he was earning a better pay that enabled him to support his family, in spite of bearing debts for paying agent fees to secure a job that locals usually considered low-paid and would not take.

A year later, in 2017, I came across another story involving a Singapore-based Chinese migrant worker, when my friend, a Straits Times labour correspondent shared it with me. A then-39-year-old construction worker was severely injured when a slab of prefabricated concrete wall being hoisted by a crane fell on him. He was certified by doctors as completely disabled and unable to work for the rest of his life, and eventually received SG$327,500 (A$330,650) in compensation, the highest amount an injured worker can get. In a way, he was considered a lucky one, as for similar cases, some could end up leaving Singapore empty-handed, my fellow journalist told me.

Over the first three months since the Covid-19 outbreak started, this prosperous first-world island nation had been a success story in the global battle against coronavirus and was lauded for its gold-standard approach to testing and tracing, until the outbreak brought attention to the predicament of its vulnerable low-wage foreign labourers.

The island nation of 5.7 million has more than 1.42 million foreign workers, over 1 million of them doing low-skilled work. Strikingly, migrant workers account for more than 90% of Singapores over 50,000 coronavirus infections as of late July.

Starting in early April, the city-state went through a two-month circuit breaker period when people were ordered to stay home and businesses paused. Then over the recent two months, restrictions have been loosened in a few phrases except in the migrant neighbourhoods.

After the initial shock, four months later, Singaporeans have grown used to the three-digit daily new case figure. The numbers are always updated in two parts the migrant neighbourhood case number, and a much smaller community case number. For the mainstream Singapore society, memories of lockdown are fading, there are long lines outside of restaurants and parks are back. To the labourers however, its a very different picture. For four months, they have had no work and no regular income to make, except a moderate government assistance. Isolated and panicked, going back home has become their priority, even though a flight ticket could cost them several months allowance.

Singapore is by no means the only country that relies heavily on guest labourers and bears the responsibility of taking better care of them. There are an estimated 164 million migrant workers worldwide who are similarly vulnerable both to the disease and the economic pain it has brought. And the issue is particularly acute in Asia: 2017 data shows there wereabout 33 million migrant workers, accounting for 20% of the global total.

It is a common trope that some cultural attributes often seen as characteristically Asian such as obedience to authority, tolerance to restrictions on personal freedom and acceptance of delayed gratification after perseverance may have helped in the regions relative success containing the disease. To some extent, however, this kind of mindset may at the same time have exacerbated the problems the continents silent groups are facing.

Nevertheless, many Asian workers are hardworking, optimistic and hopeful. Despite all the hardships, it is reported that a vast majority of migrant labourers choose to continue working in Singapore well beyond their first contract.

The good news is their future here may become brighter. Like the ancient Chinese proverb goes, Its never too late to mend. The Singaporean authorities have announced that temporary structures will be built by the end of the year, accommodating more than 50,000 migrant workers, with other permanent dormitories to house up to 100,000 to be built in the years to come. The new standards will reduce density and improve air circulation in those complexes. The government is also working on providing the migrants easier access to medical care and support.

I dont know if those heartbroken suicidal workers who went back to their home countries will ever come back to Singapore to make a living again after the crisis. What I do know is that, regardless, the post-pandemic era should not just be ours, but theirs, too.

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The invisible during the pandemic | The Interpreter - The Interpreter

Turf wars and frequent transfer of bureaucrats have made the handling of COVID difficult in Bengaluru. Pic: Javed Anees, Wikimedia Commons

Read up. You really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before. These are famous lines from Arthur Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet. A problem or its solution have all transpired before. But have we missed the lessons?

It has been nine months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported from Wuhan, China in November 2019. The problem took a life of its own and knocked on Indias shores through Kerala in January 2020. It became Bengalurus problem in March of 2020.

While Bengaluru started out well in keeping the pandemic under check, we later slipped into chaos. We have struggled with its management. Lockdowns, restrictions, dissemination of information, healthcare we have wrestled with every aspect so badly that Henri Fayol is calling from his grave, offeringfree lessons in management. Because at the end of the day, effective management is the only thing that will allow us to beat this problem.

But where did we go so wrong? This isnt the first time our city has faced a health crisis. The bubonic plague of 1898 wasnt minuscule. What are the lessons we missed from history? What are the parallels?

I return to some of Fayols 14 principles of management, because sometimes we have to start from the basics:

When the bubonic plague broke out in Bengaluru in 1898, K Madhava Rao was appointed to the newly-created post of Plague Commissioner. He took over in 1898 and held the post till 1901, before being promoted as the Diwan of Mysore. In 1895, Ronald Ross, Nobel laureate in physiology, was recalled to Bengaluru on special sanitary duty to contain the frequent cholera outbreaks at the time. He stayed on until he was posted to Secunderabad in 1897.

Lets look at the current scenario. City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao was transferred in less than a year (he had taken over in August 2019). This is in line with the spate of transfers we have been seeing of late. A fortnight ago, the government had abruptly transferred about 60 IAS officers and 200 KAS officers who were involved with various levels of COVID management.

I elucidate on some of them here. The BBMP core team that led the fight against COVID included five IAS officers Dr M Lokesh, Ravikumar Surpur, D Randeep, Hephsiba Rani Korlapati and Basvaraj led by BBMP Commissioner B H Anil Kumar. M Lokesh has been transferred as Excise Commissioner, and Ravikumar was posted to the Agriculture Department. BBMP Commissioner Anil Kumar too was shunted out less than a year after he took over. Captain P Manivannan, who was the Principal Secretary of both the Labour Department and the Department of Information & Public Relations, was similarly shunted out.

The transfers of officers who were part of the core team that initially controlled the pandemic, certainly throws a spanner in the works. But if that isnt enough to derail management, the officers who replaced them also hold other portfolios.

In 1898, the special post of Plague Commissioner was created so that there would be focused attention on the problem. Whereas N Manjunath Prasad, who just took over as the BBMP commissioner, already has two other portfolios to manage. So, forget allowing for focused attention, we dont even have a whole Commissioner. What we have is one-third of a Commissioner to deal with a problem of this magnitude.

Similarly, when Maheshwar Rao who took over from Manivannan, he was already the Principal Secretary, Department of MSME and Mines. He was brought in at the height of the migrant crisis, when the Labour Department was struggling to deal with the situation on the ground.

Reynold Ross, when he linked the poor sanitary condition of the city to the cholera outbreaks, brought out a document emphasising the short-sightedness of the government in waste management. Short-sightedness of governments is a problem even today, hampered further by political interests.

A large part of the recent transfers have been attributed to the turf war between MLAs and corporators ahead of the BBMP elections. The supposed turf war between R Ashok and C Ashwathnarayan, the corporators demanding a more visible role, are all not helping create solutions.

Similarly, we can examine each of Fayols principles Scalar Chain, Order, Initiative, Esprit de Corps, Unity of direction, Unity of command, etc. and find enough examples of how each of these have been breached. The flareup between Ashwathnarayan and Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, BSYs anger with Anil Kumar you dont have to look to hard, its all right there. Writing them all would make this article too long.

Fayols principles no longer hold prime position in management texts because they are considered common sense these days. One has to wonder just how common they are.Because it seems like we are currently writing the script for Kissa Kursi Ka Part 2 the political satire movie from 1977 that was banned and whose prints were burnt for mocking the then-government.

The movie, a poor mans Jaane Bhi Yaaron, has a plot very reminiscent of the mismanagement of our times. In the movie, the government is dealing with a rat problem. Its harbinger scheme of buying cats from a foreign country in exchange for Indian dogs goes kaput because corruption has meant that no cats were delivered. They then come up with another solution offering a certificate and cash prize to people depending on the number of dead rats they produce.Needless to say, the idea goes to hell in a handbasket very quickly, and chaos ensues. It is a predicament like the one we find ourselves in.

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"COVID response: Bengaluru is overlooking every management lesson from history" | - Citizen Matters, Bengaluru

New economic imperatives are forcing nations to make a choice.

Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback

The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW YORK (IDN) COVID-19 has not only presented the global economy with its greatest public health challenge in over a century, but also likely killed off the notion of Americas unipolar moment for good. That doesnt mean full-on autarky or isolationism but, rather, enlightened selfishness, which allows for some limited cooperation. Donald Trumps ongoing threats to impose additional tariffs on a range of EU exports are exacerbating this trend as the old post-World War II ties between the two regions continue to fray.

Even the possibility of a Biden administration is unlikely to presage a reversion to the status quo ante. Regionalization and multipolarity will be the order of the day going forward.

Many will regard these developments as chiefly driven by geopolitical prerogatives. But over time, the driving engine of the process will be a combination of maturing technologies that are rewriting the laws of profitability in manufacturing and production for advanced economies. The various capacities that enabled a far-flung global supply chain and sent the economies of Asia into hyperdrive over the past 40 years have continued to mature.

The rise of China, South Korea and Japan in this period is just a phase of a larger series of advances that are now likely to become more distributed and at the same time reshuffle the geopolitical trend lines we currently experience.

The reshuffling is coming in large part because Americas historic military dominance has less relevance in a world where the new forms of competition place greater weight on access to advanced research and technologies, rather than the projection of brute military force (especially given the increasing proliferation of nuclear technologies and the rise of asymmetric warfare).

Furthermore, the lack of American manufacturing capacity has left it open to a significant loss of influence to the benefit of other regions, notably China (in Asia), and Germany (in the European Union). China in particular will likely remain both a geopolitical and economic rival to the United States for the foreseeable future, especially as it already supersedes the United States in some areas of technology (such as 5G), and is increasingly becoming the locus of economic activity in Asia. As yet, Asia is by no means a cohesive economic or strategic bloc (such as the European Union), especially given the ongoing American influence in countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

But longer term, it is hard to believe that an independent democratic Japan would embrace a foreign policy stance that risks antagonizing a country of almost 1.4 billion people with nukes. According to some projections, by 2050 Japan will likely constitute about one-eighth of Chinas GDP, South Korea much less.

On the basis of that size disparity, strategic triangulation is a non-starter. Japan will no more be able to balance China than Canada today can contain the United States. It is likewise difficult to envisage Seoul continuing to have its own relations with the North being continuously subject to the vagaries of Pentagon politics in D.C. Heightening instability on the Korean peninsula is hardly in the long-term interests of either Seoul or Pyongyang.

By the same token, the idea of a broad but shallow trilateral United States-EU-Japan bloc against China is also a fantasy because the European Union, like Japan, increasingly finds its own interests clashing with those of the U.S. These tensions have manifested themselves fully in the current dispute over Huawei, Chinas largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The Europeans, especially Germany, may well be too invested in China to side with the United States in this particular dispute given its strong pre-existing commercial ties with the former, as Wolfgang Munchaus Eurointelligence highlights:

China is Germanys biggest trading partner. Merkel continues to seek dialoguewith China and insisted that ties with the country are of strategic importance to the EU. If this can be called a strategy it is clearly motivated by economic interests. These days, German car makers are dependent on the Chinese market,where record sales in Q2 compensated for the fallout from the pandemic in other markets, the FAZ reports.

This also applies in the specific case of Huawei, where the U.S. is spearheading an attempt to limit the Chinese companys global reach on national security grounds. Berlin in particular is seeking to balance the tensions of preserving an increasingly fraying relationship with the U.S. versus safeguarding emerging German commercial interests in China. The Merkel government is expected to make a definitive decision on Huawei by the autumn when the German parliament reconvenes; this will have significant implications for Europe as a whole, as an increasing number of EU member states are moving away from the firms 5G wares.

German political opinion remains sharply divided on the issue of Huawei. The decision is also complicated by the fact that Deutsche Telekom, a 32%-state-owned company, is the countrys largest mobile provider and already relies heavily on Huawei equipment. It has lobbied strongly against any action that would make it harder for it to roll out 5G, according to the Economist. If the Berlin government fails to follow the lead of the United Kingdom (which recently reversed an earlier decision to incorporate Huawei equipment in its growing 5G infrastructure), it will send a very powerful political signal in terms of how Germany prioritizes its long-term interests, which are no longer axiomatically tied to the U.S.

However Germany decides on Huawei, Atlanticism as a concept is largely dead in Europe. Even before the onset of the pandemic, for example, Italy had already become the first European country to join Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in response to ongoing economic stagnation. COVID-19 has, if anything, accelerated this Sinification of the Italian economy, given the ham-handed response of Brussels to the countrys plight (and which is still governed by old prevailing austerity biases). Although the tangible economic benefits of the BRI have likely been overstated, Rome-based journalist Eric Reguly has written:

The Italian government rolled out the welcome mat to Chinese President Xi Jinping in part because it is desperate for foreign investment. Italy suffers from crushing youth unemployment and never fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. It felt it was more or less abandoned by the U.S. and the rest of the EU on the investment front. The anti-EU sentiment among Italians rose during the migrant crisis, when other countries of the bloc refused to relieve Italys migrant burden, and rose again earlier this year, when Brussels ignored Italys initial pleas for help to fight COVID-19.

It is important to note that Huawei is but a symptom of a broader EU disengagement from the U.S. Even if Huaweis role in Europes future 5G networks is minimized, the big winners will be European companies, Nokia and Ericsson, not American ones. The 5G deficiency is but one illustration of how Americas failure to prioritize a robust manufacturing sector has contributed to a loss of influence and leverage in Europe.

That in turn explains the relatively tepid response to American pressure in many European capitals. Many EU member states have made the calculation that their interests are no longer inextricably tied to those of the U.S. One also sees this in response to American threats over new Russian natural gas pipelines, which the EU is largely ignoring. Europe has outgrown the suffocating embrace of Cold War exigencies.

The one outlier might well be the United Kingdom in its post-Brexit incarnation. Via the Five Eyes intelligence coordination among the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, it is possible that there will be a further tightening of the Anglosphere countries. Their current convergence on Huawei is one illustration of this, although Huaweis Chief Digital Officer, Michael MacDonald, concedes that the battle over 5G dominance is small fry compared to the total Digital Economy, which is generally accepted to contribute as much as 25% of the worlds gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025-26, [and] will be worth approximately $20 trillion, with 5G contributing just 0.2%. And here the U.S. has everything to play for, given its ongoing dominance through American Big Tech behemoths such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

As far as the U.S. itself goes, that also means a narrow but deep North America strategy (United States/Mexico/Canada), especially given the American governments increasing proclivity to view economic warfare through the prism of national security considerations (as it did during the original Cold War). Those national security calculations have changed somewhat: In a reversal of old Cold War norms, whereby the strategic importance of Japan via Americas offshore naval presence was paramount, Mexico is now being prioritized, at least in regard to manufacturing and investment flows via the new North American trade agreement.

As U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer writes in Foreign Affairs, the newly reconfigured United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement reinforces this trend by overhaul[ing] the rules of origin that govern trade in the [automobile] sector, increasing the threshold from 62.5 percent under the old NAFTA to 75 percent under the new USMCA.

These concerns are becoming bipartisan, as both parties are now tacking increasingly toward an overt form of economic nationalism.

Multipolarity need not usher in a Hobbesian-style world of eternal conflict. But as it becomes more of a reality, it signals the increasing eclipse of America as a preeminent superpower of one. Asias rise in particular simply returns the distribution of economic activity to what it was before the first industrial revolution. Thats not a bad thing, except for those rooted toward an embrace of American hegemony that must be retained at all costs, peacefully or by war.

If anything, one could argue that Americas status as the worlds sole global superpower ushered in considerably greater global instability, given the absence of any restraining counterweight, as Washington went from one unilateral war of choice to another. A Joe Biden victory in November may temporarily arrest these trends, but the die has been cast. [IDN-InDepthNews 31 July 2020].

Image source: Midas FinServe Private Limited

IDN is flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.

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Even If Joe Biden Wins in a Blowout, the 'Global Economy' Is Not Coming Back - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

Last year, PepsiCo was scouting for a suitable location for its fourth plant in India. The $67 billion beverages and snack food giant would invest Rs 500 crore to set up a unit to make its popular Lays and Doritos chips. The plant would employ 1,500 people, and bring with it associated benefits contract farming that would assure demand and improve quality and yield for farmers; business for vendors in cold chain, transportation, and so on.

After much deliberation, it zeroed in on a state that is also its largest market in India. The states network of expressways, proximity to the national capital region, an upcoming international airport and the red-carpet welcome rolled out by the state government all helped in the decision-making. Everything applications to clearances happened via a single-window digital platform called Nivesh Mitra. Within months, land was acquired, approvals sought and clearances secured. Despite the pandemic, construction is on in full swing. The MNC is pleasantly surprised that whatever was promised has been delivered.

The plant will be operational next summer. Besides the chief ministers office monitoring the progress, a direct line with the local district magistrate helps in resolving routine glitches.

This is the kind of thing one hears about businessfriendly states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. But PepsiCos new plant is coming up at Kosi Kalan in Mathura district in Uttar Pradesh. Our plant in UP will not only help us double our snack business over the next few years but also deepen Pepsi-Cos relationship with the states potato farmers, says Ahmed ElSheikh, president, PepsiCo India.

UP occupies a lot of mind space, but mostly for the wrong reasons. It was recently in the news because gang members of a local don with political connections gunned down eight policemen. Once the state police apprehended him, he was killed in an encounter a euphemism for custodial killing.

Right now the state is busy with the groundbreaking ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, due on Wednesday. Its the culmination of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement that started in the 1980s and propelled the rise of the BJP, now in power both at the Centre and in the state. These are what UP is often associated with the quintessential heartland cocktail of crime, unemployment, political fault lines of caste and religion, bad governance and poor socioeconomic indicators.

Ever since he came to power in 2017, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his team of ministers and bureaucrats have been putting up a determined effort to attract invest ments into the state. Without improving the states economic prospects, they reckon, the BJP reckons, it wont be easy to retain the voters confidence. It has taken time, but the results are beginning to show.

However, in all the din around UP, Adityanaths take-no-prisoners style, unabashed Hindutva politics and the inevitable controversies, these are easy to miss.

Encouraged by the vision of the chief minister and the efforts of this investment-friendly government, ITC is progressively expanding its footprint in UP, says Chitranjan Dar, member, corporate management committee, and group head (projects), ITC Ltd. Haldirams is setting up two new plants worthRs 500 crore, employing 2,000-plus people, in the next three-four years. Fast-track process, government handholding industry and the upcoming Jewar airport and expressways have helped us decide on UP, says Sanjay Singhania, vice-president (commercial), Haldirams.

The state is fast becoming a mobile manufacturing hub. In 2018, Samsung inaugurated its worlds largest mobile factory in UP as part of its $715 million India investment plan. Many more like Vivo and Lava are following. In May-June, even as the state dealt with the pandemic and the migrant labour crisis, the important work of wooing investors didnt stop.

The states Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) auctioned via video conferencing 63 acres of land for 27 industrial units, entailing investments ofRs 1,600 crore, which would create over 32,000 jobs. Its CEO Arunvir Singh is pitching UPs network of expressways and the Jewar international airport to woo investors for its upcoming industrial parks. These include a 300 acre park for small businesses, a 700 acre electronic city and a 200 acre textile park. When completed, they would create 7 lakh new jobs, he says.

In Lucknow, Minister for MSME, Investment & Export Promotion Sidharth Nath Singh is focusing on global investors. In July, he reckons, in one fortnight he would have made virtual presentations to executives in the US, UK, Russia, Thailand, Germany, South Korea and Japan, to invest in UP. Targeting those looking to derisk from China, UP has set up dedicated foreign desks for outreach helped by the Centre and embassies. Thats how the Microsoft deal happened. I got to know at a webinar that Microsoft was planning a campus in North India. I immediately reached out, says Sidharth Nath Singh.

Land parcels in Greater Noida have been sold out. The Yamuna Expressway has got a good response and 53 hectares of its Aligarh node, part of the defence corridor, have been allotted. At the UP Investors Summit 2018, 1,045 MoUs were signed, entailing investments of Rs 4.28 lakh crore. With two ground-breaking ceremonies, 34% MoUs have matured, says the minister. Numbers confirm this.

Project UptickOf late, UP has seen a robust growth of both public and private sector project investment (See chart). According to Projects Today, a tracker of projects, UPs cumulative investments funnel has doubled from Rs 4.22 lakh crore in March 2015 to Rs 8.07 lakh crore in March 2020. Its project implementation ratio a proxy for projects getting off the ground has improved from 36.86% to 43.88% during the period. Fresh annual investments grew fromRs 39,193 crore in March 2018 to Rs 52,211 crore in March 2020, even as the share of private sector grew from 29.45% to 42.18%.

UP is doing well. If this continues we may see a new UP in the next five years, says Shashikant Hegde, director, Projects Today. Since 2017, it has got some of its biggest infrastructure projects off the ground completing old ones and kicking off new. Take theRs 30,000 crore Jewar airport. First proposed in 2001, it is now on track to be ready by 2022-23. Proposals to build 12 new airports, including in Ayodhya and Varanasi, have been cleared. The Agra-Lucknow Expressway (302 km) got completed and the Rs 39,000 crore Ganga Expressway (602 km) has been kicked off.

Both Purvanchal and Bundelkhand expressways will be built on time. We are working seriously on the defence corridor project with the Aligarh node, says Awanish Awasthi, additional chief secretary (home), UP government.

Turnaround Scepticism Is this for real? Can UP actually turn a corner? Over the last month, ET Magazine spoke to at least two dozen people who are stakeholders in UPs economy, including corporate executives, businesspeople, real estate developers, representatives of industry bodies, including MSME chapters in towns like Bulandshahr, Deoria, Varanasi, Muzaffarnagar and Agra, and a number of sectoral experts, to piece together the real picture. The view is unanimous the gap between UPs image and reality as a destination for business is growing rapidly.

UP is relentlessly wooing businesses, projects and investors. There are several underlying reasons. The NDA government at the Centre deems UPs economic performance to be key to retaining its voters. Hence, it is deploying all resources political, economic, religious and financial to build a robust foundation. UP today has Indias best expressway network and it is set to only get better. Mega projects like airports and its audacious greenfield defence corridor project have been flagged off. For the first time, I am seeing this aggressiveness and dynamism in UP to woo investors. UPs defence corridor is greenfield while Tamil Nadus is brownfield. The Centre will play a critical role in directing these investments, says a defence sector expert.

Growth in Projects & Investments

Growth in Projects & Investments

All the top ministers, bureaucrats and the CM were to come to the campus in buses without their VIP bandobast. The CM led from the front, getting into the bus first. Everyone just followed, she says. For her, two things stood out the CMs clarity of thinking and determination to deliver results. Two people a minister and a senior bureaucrat recall instances of projects being stuck in Raibareli and Gorakhpur because concerned officers were delaying clearances. In his weekly review of delayed projects, Adityanath pulled up the officers, found their explanations wanting and suspended them right away. His message is clear. Such behaviour will not be tolerated, says minister Sidharth Nath Singh.

This even as the state is tweaking norms and redrafting incentive packages to woo industries like shoe manufacturing and agri-processing away from China. Suspending labour laws for three years was among them. In May, German footwear maker Von Wellx decided to move its entire production from China to UP with its partner Latric Industries.

Its CEO, Ashish Jain, says, Government support and CMs ability to make the bureaucracy move were remarkable. He has been promised that footwear will be included as part of the garment policy incentive package. His `110 crore project will set up two plants, create 10,000 jobs and will produce 3 million pairs annually.

Eliminating CrimeAccording to the National Crime Records Bureau 2018, UP has the second highest incidences of crime under IPC in the country, after Maharashtra. The state has been rightly criticised for a spate of extrajudicial killings since Adityanath came to power. The CM has made his tough line on crime quite clear.

Shortly after taking office, in 2017, Adityanath had openly said that criminals would either go to jail or be killed in police encounters. Under Adityanaths watch, 119 such killings have occurred, according to media reports. The cops have been acquitted in 74 cases where a magisterial enquiry has been completed. Many entrepreneurs and executives say the crime situation has improved, going by their experience. Pankaj Agarwal, promoter of Bindlas Duplux Ltd and head of the Muzaffarnagar chapter of the Indian Industries Association, says in the past his manager was once shot at.

THE SHIFT : The Yogi Adityanath government has rolled out a slew of initiatives-

THE SHIFT : The Yogi Adityanath government has rolled out a slew of initiatives-

Avinash Kumar, an IITian and IAS officer with stints in private sector and startups, is special secretary to the CM and oversees the platform. He was brought to Lucknow in 2017 to build a robust, user-friendly, single-window clearance digital platform to monitor all applications and approvals. Through Nivesh Mitra, CM directly monitors key projects with his Team 11 to remove hurdles, says Awasthi. (Team 11 is a group of top bureaucrats.) Today, Nivesh Mitra offers 149 services across 20 departments. In 20182020, it got 2.05 lakh applications and gave 1.63 lakh clearances.

Despite lockdown, between April 1 and July 20, 34,361 applications were filed and 28,248 clearances were issued. With timebound deadlines for bureaucrats and a transparent view of where files are stuck, the application-to-approval cycle has been smoothened. Weekly project reviews by the CM is creating a hustle culture in a sclerotic bureaucracy. Time to get the factory licence has halved from three-four weeks earlier to onetwo weeks now, says Sanjeev Agarwal, CMO of phone maker Lava International. Sunil Chaturvedi, chairman of Gainwell Commosales, recalls how pleasantly surprised he was when the electricity duty discount due to him was credited to his account without any follow-up or palm-greasing.

Perception vs Reality

But livelihood and rehabilitation of so many will not be easy for any government." MSMEs in UP are in deep crisis. From Bulandshahr to Varanasi, they are hurting and many won't survive. Says Sanjeev Arora, head, Deoria chapter (Gorakhpur), Indian Industries Association: "The government announced many pandemic schemes. We have got nothing. It is all in the air, more promises than action." Add to this the skewed development within the state.

Says Sunil Kumar Sinha, principal economist, India Ratings: "The dichotomy between east and west UP is stark. UP has to grow faster to fill the deficit." From Bundelkhand Expressway to the defence corridor, the Centre is helping UP attract investment and develop some of its most backward regions. But this is easier said than done. The top-down approach of driving change from Lucknow also has its limitations. DS Verma, executive director, Indian Industries Association, says: "Intention at the top is good. But lower and mid-level (government) machinery is rusted."

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How Yogi Adityanath is beginning to recast UP as a business friendly destination - Economic Times