Varanasi region weaning away industry from north & west India

Varanasi: With Uttar Pradesh notching up the second rank in ease-of-doing business, phones are abuzz in the state industry department with entrepreneurs across India expressing interest in investment, particularly in the Varanasi region due its strategic location and easy availability of labour. The Covid-triggered lockdown created a vacuum in industrial belts of Punjab, Haryana and west India after labourers left for their home turfs of UP and Bihar and a reverse migration was yet to pick pace.
However, scarce land and its high cost is compelling the state government and industry department officials to convince industrialists to set up shop in the hinterland of Varanasi.
Deputy director (industries) Umesh Kumar Singh told TOI that Varanasi region holds an enviable position not only because of cheap labour, but also due to improved infrastructure. Also, Varanasi is strategically located to cater to markets in eastern UP, neighbouring Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. “If a well-oiled distribution network is put in place, it will lower transportation and product cost amid high availability of raw material. We are weaning away industrialists from Punjab and Gujarat,” he said. “A Rajkot-based company had recently come to establish its unit and we arranged land for them on Varanasi-Jaunpur border. A leading pressure cooker manufacturing company also decided to open its second unit here, instead of Punjab. And we are arraning land for them near Karkhiyao Industrial Area in Sathariya area. We are receiving multiple calls from industrialists in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, MP, Chhattisgarh and other parts of country, expressing interest in exploring investment possibility,” said Singh. P 5