UP to become tech-savy to attract investors

Lucknow, July 16 (IANS) In a bid to attract investment, the Uttar Pradesh government will soon be using a GIS system for mapping available industrial land, enabling investors to select a site online, officials said Wednesday.

Besides the Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping system, it was also suggested at a meeting Tuesday that labour pools be created to provide skill-specific workforce to industries.

"We are encouraged by the response of investors in the recently held investors' conclave in Delhi and have decided to create an enabling environment based on feedback of investors and industry," a state official told IANS.

It was also decided that all state departments dealing with providing clearances for establishing enterprise or industry should conduct a comparative mapping of best practices' adopted by other states vis-a-vis Uttar Pradesh within a fortnight.

Sanjeev Saran, principal secretary, industrial and infrastructure development, said: "Industrial growth is imperative for economic development. In the current scenario, improvement in doing business environment seeks to be addressed by easing the procedures and use of information technology for time-bound clearances."

He said online services of commercial tax department were at par with any other progressive state in India. Online refund facility has also been introduced recently apart from already available facilities such as e-registration, e-sancharan (for intra-state movement of goods), e-payment, e-return and so on.

It was also decided that departments providing services online should also start work on switching over to online back-end processing of entrepreneurs' application to impart transparency and reduction in time taken to issue approvals.