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The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government is reportedly mulling changes to its micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) policy to boost women entrepreneurship. 

According to Business Standard, the proposed new policy will offer full stamp duty subsidy to women entrepreneurs to purchase land for setting up micro and small units. Apart from that, other MSMEs would also receive subsidies between 50-100% depending on the region of the state.

Essentially, the state government will offer a full subsidy in Industrially-backward regions of Bundelkhand and Purvanchal, while central UP and western UP regions, not including Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad, will get a 75% subsidy on stamp duty for land purchase. In the industrial hubs of Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida) and Ghaziabad, a subsidy of 50% has reportedly been proposed.

The move is aimed at spurring manufacturing and encouraging fresh investment in the back pockets of the state.

Additionally, the new policy will also offer capital subsidies to attract private players. The proposed changes have earmarked 15-20% capital subsidies for upcoming enterprises in Bundelkhand and Purvanchal, while such subsidies have been pegged at 10-20% in central and western parts of the state.

“We are in the process of updating our MSME policy to make it more attractive for private investment”, UP’s additional chief secretary for MSMEs, Navneet Sehgal, was quoted as saying. 

Apart from this, authorities will also facilitate interest subsidies up to 6% on working capital loans for MSMEs in Bundelkhand and Purvanchal districts. This will largely be addressed by working with commercial banks and other financial institutions in the state. 

The policy changes come as the state prepares for a mega investor summit slated later in January 2023. Addressing the Independence event, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday (August 15) said that the state attracted investments worth INR 4 Lakh Cr in the last five years and was eyeing another INR 10 Lakh Cr capital at the upcoming summit. 

Earlier this month, the government appointed Deloitte India as a consultant to formulate a blueprint for achieving the target of $1 Tn economy by 2027.

Despite the tall claims, the state still does not still have a full-fledged women-focused startup policy while many of its peers do. 

In September last year, the state government launched Mission Shakti which was aimed at churning out 75,000 women entrepreneurs. The state government also has a Udyog Bandhu scheme which aims to spur investments and handhold founders to establish and scale operations

In November last year as well, the state government had inked an MoU with a social commerce company Frontier Markets to support rural women with livelihood and income generation.. 

Between 2017 and 2022, more than 10 Mn MSME entrepreneurs in the state reportedly availed of loans worth more than INR 2.5 Tn. 

According to data released by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), Uttar Pradesh is home to 6,379 startups, a majority of them based out of Noida, Ghaziabad and Lucknow. Interestingly, the centre also said that 1,219 startups were operating in Bundelkhand and Purvanchal regions of the state.