UP grants 6 month extension to pandemic-hit projects

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Mar 31, 2021

The Uttar Pradesh government has granted six months extension to private investment projects hit by the abrupt Covid-19 lockdown last year.

The relief has been provided to such projects, which had already been provided with the letter of comfort (LoC) by the state government, and were expected to start commercial production between March 22 and December 31, 2020.

According to the UP industrial development department, the six months extension would be added to the expected commencement of production by an individual unit for calculating the new date of completion of projects.

An amended government order (GO) under the UP industrial investment and employment promotion policy 2017 has been issued by UP additional chief secretary, infrastructure and industrial development, Arvind Kumar in this regard.

This will not only provide an additional time window to the investors to complete their projects, but also retain their eligibility for availing of the various incentives promised by the government.

The industrial and commercial activities, barring those associated with medical supplies and essential commodities, had come to a standstill following lockdown in March 2020 pan India. Although, lockdown norms were subsequently relaxed in phases, yet the industrial units faced bottlenecks with regards to the availability of industrial inputs, movement of labour etc.

Keeping these factors in mind, the Yogi Adityanath government has allowed an extra six months to these companies.

In December 2020, the UP cabinet had similarly allowed six months extension to the mega 100 acre Lucknow IT City project of HCL Technologies. Under the concession agreement signed between the state government and HCL, the IT major is entitled to a host of incentives if the project was completed within the stipulated timeframe.

HCL Lucknow IT City project is the largest HCL campus in North India and offers a spectrum of services including infrastructure management, application development, product engineering, BPO and HCL internal enabling functions.

Whereas, phase I of the HCL IT City project was completed in time, phase II faced hiccups owing to lockdown. The Covid-19 pandemic not only halted the project for nearly two months, the pace of work remained sub-optimum during the subsequent lockdown periods as well.