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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."

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

By Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts

As the Coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe, closing cities and shutting borders, migrants fleeing violence, persecution, and seeking a new life are stuck in the midst of a health and economic crisis. In this article, Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts investigates how current conditions could affect the future of migrants impacted by the pandemic and what NGOs and governments can do to help. She is a Global Studies undergraduate student at the University of Virginia.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia, USA (IDN) - As Europe closed borders and suspended flights in early March to combat the spread of COVID-19, undocumented migrants and migrant workers remained stuck in Spain for two months. Many were without living spaces or sources of income after the shutdown, leaving some to take shelter in gyms or out on the streets, some even attempting to swim into Morocco from Ceuta as a last resort.

With most countries closing borders and issuing some form of stay-at-home orders, safety and services dedicated to asylum seekers and refugees has dramatically decreased. The result is many migrants in Morocco and around the world facing dangerous health situations and increased economic insecurity.

Migrants in Morocco, even those with proper documentation, cannot reap the benefits of accessible state aid. For many, income and livelihood depend on mobility. The majority of migrants work in informal jobs (street vendors and uncontracted work such as cleaners), which contribute to 20 per cent of Moroccos economy. With closures, many have no source of income and cannot qualify for any financial support by the government.

Without a source of income, some do not eat every day, and others skip meals. In the current situation, asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants are more vulnerable to permanent job loss and deportation as movement is restricted.

What does this mean for the future?

Stigmatization, misinformation, and discrimination have led to further restrictions for migrants. False claims and reports spread rumours that migrants carry the virus and spread it throughout communities. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees are targeted with curfews that do not apply to other foreigners or citizens despite the low number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Syrian refugees (only 1.3 per cent).

New restrictions on migration suggest longer-term impacts on mobility and an increase in social exclusion, leading to issues like discrimination and even global divides as production shifts locally and economic isolation grows.

Limited mobility increases dangerous and illegal migration, forcing more to turn to smugglers, increasing vulnerability to human trafficking and abuses in the exploitation of peoples desperation. This includes further potential restrictions to migrant workers and migrants seeking refuge in third countries, like Spain or Italy.

Migration in a Moroccan Context

Traditionally an emigration country, Morocco has quickly become the safer migration route into Europe, with land access to the border in the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. Although the number of illegal border crossings into Spain has halved since 2018, the majority (28 per cent) of migrants entering into mainland Spain last year came from Morocco.

Morocco has begun to reduce the number of illegal border crossings into Europe, but once caught, migrants can end up in a deportation loop. Arriving at the Spanish border, they are arrested and bussed back to Southern Moroccan cities far from smugglers who could offer them passage. As authorities continue to restrict movement, migrants and smugglers are pushed to seek out new routes, such as by sea, which is often more dangerous.

Since 2014 the Moroccan government has run two major regularization campaigns, giving residency permits to 50,000 migrants within the country. However, the UNHCR reports that gaps in accessing documentation and employment persist.

With tighter migration restrictions on popular destination points, such as Spain, France, and Italy, Morocco could see larger populations of migrant workers stuck indefinitely in migration centres such as Rabat.

What will come next?

Organizations like the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) offer some solutions. Beginning in 2020, law school students at the University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah in partnership with HAF will provide pro-bono legal aid to migrants in the Fez region, in particular victims of trafficking, young people, and women.

Fez is estimated to house tens of thousands of migrants, many of which come from Sub-Saharan regions of Africa and live within the new districts of the city. These districts are often modest or poor, and with limited legal access, migrants have trouble finding work. In a study of migrants in Fes, only 53 per cent of respondents reported that they are or had been engaged in paid employment since their arrival.

Providing legal aid to migrants reduces the potential of trafficking networks and smugglers from taking advantage, while also offering law students the chance to gain valuable experience in the field and connecting migrants and women to CSOs to develop skills and build their cooperatives or businesses, which can reduce youth unemployment. With a stronger legal and economic support system, migrants are more likely to establish roots rather than risk irregular migration to Europe.

Developmental and human rights organizations are increasingly offering support to migrants around the country, yet it is important that organizations take further steps at the local level. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repeatedly warned that specific quarantine measures and restrictions on free movement must meet international human rights standards. Rather than delaying asylum claims, they can be processed remotely, where restrictions prevent face-to-face interviews. Extending residency permits to those in-need can increase health access to migrants in areas affected by the pandemic.

In May, in partnership with the Moroccan government, the UNHCR and the National Council of the Medical Association teamed up to provide increased health care access and medicines for asylum seekers and refugees in Morocco.

Moroccan migration policies support a humanitarian approach and prohibit manifestations of racism. However, the limited accessibility of resources for migrants and legal obstacles persist.

Further steps can include greater health and legal accessibility for vulnerable migrant groups, including access to psychosocial support, emergency accommodation, pre-school education, childcare, mediation, and occasional emergency aid (such as in the case of a lockdown). October has historically been the most active month for migrants crossing from Morocco to Spain, so it is important to adopt these steps to prevent a surge in dangerous, irregular border crossings. [IDN-InDepthNews 14 July 2020]

Photo: Law students of USMBA, the university named after Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, a 18th century Sultan of Morocco, participate in skills-building workshops in preparation for opening a law clinic. February 2020, High Atlas Foundation.

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

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This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You are free to share, remix, tweak and build upon it non-commercially. Please give due credit.

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The Forgotten Victims of COVID-19 Amid Migration Crisis - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

The five truths about the migrant workers crisis |Opinion - analysis - Hindustan Times "; forYoudata += ""; forYoudata += ""; forYoudata += ""; count++; if (i === 7) { return false; } }); forYouApiResponse=forYoudata; $(forutxt).html('Recommended for you'); $(foruContent).html(forYoudata); } } }); } else if(forYouApiResponse!=''){ $(forutxt).html('Recommended for you'); $(foruContent).html(forYouApiResponse); } } function getUserData(){ $.ajax({ url:"https://www.hindustantimes.com/newsletter/get-active-subscription?usertoken="+user_token, type:"GET", dataType:"json", success: function(res){ if(res.length>0) { $("[id^=loggedin]").each(function(){ $(this).hide(); }); } } }); } function postUserData(payLoad, elm){ var msgelm=$(elm).parents(".subscribe-update").nextAll("#thankumsg"); $.ajax({ url:"https://www.hindustantimes.com/newsletter/subscribe", type:"POST", data:payLoad, contentType: "application/json", dataType: "json", success: function(res){ if(res.success===true){ $(msgelm).show(); 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The five truths about the migrant workers crisis | Opinion - Hindustan Times

Written by Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey | New Delhi | Updated: July 20, 2020 9:37:32 am An interaction with around 200 migrant workers from Unnao, Sitapur, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kushinagar and Saharanpur districts in UP, gives a picture very different from what the government has been claiming.

In the wake of migrant workers returning following the lockdown, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced on May 24 that his government will set up of a commission to create employment opportunities in the state. He said the commission will conduct skill mapping of migrant workers and provide them jobs and social security.

An interaction with around 200 migrant workers from Unnao, Sitapur, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kushinagar and Saharanpur districts in UP, gives a picture very different from what the government has been claiming. Not one of the workers surveyed in these districts has been approached by the government for skill mapping or for providing them guidance for any kind of livelihood options in their home state. Only one of them had received monetary support of Rs 1,000 twice, though about half of them were provided with the 35-kg ration kit benefits promised to all the returning migrant workers. However, the cash benefit could be availed only by those who had used state-owned transport, which was near absent.

Most of the migrant workers had been employed by the construction industry in the National Capital Region, Haryana and Punjab. Some of them worked with plaster of paris and did marble masonry. Some were polishing marble in Telangana. Still others were tailors in Ahmedabad, or worked in hotels in Mumbai. A few had work in factories producing crockery, hosiery and clothes. The farthest anybody worked was in a zarda factory in Karnataka. The few women among the returnees worked as domestic workers or were employed in cloth factories in Ludhiana.

Only less than 10 per cent of them got to travel free by government transport. Most of them spent their own money to travel by various kinds of private vehicles, on buses, auto-rickshaws etc, often changing the vehicle at some place, and even walking part or full distance. For example, when the police would not let their vehicles cross the Delhi-UP border, they would walk up to Ghaziabad or even Aligarh, some along the railway tracks to avoid the police, and then hail a vehicle. Often, they travelled in groups so that costs could be shared. The amount a person spent on travel was upwards of Rs 2,000.

About 10 per cent of them were quarantined the quarantine centres were mostly neighbourhood schools for 14 days. Others were told to go home and voluntarily quarantine themselves inside their homes. Relatives of workers quarantined at most centres were asked to arrange food for their quarantined family member.

Three-fourths of these workers are young, below the age of 35 years and close to 70 per cent of them belonged to the Scheduled Castes. Only 13 per cent of the workers were from the general category, indicating that the most underprivileged in the society continues to be from the bottom-most segment of the Hindu caste order.

Most of the workers who have returned, especially those belonging to the SC community, do not own enough land to sustain their families while living in the village. However, they are also aware that in the coming year, and possibly even the next one, there will be no work for them at the places they had left in desperation. Hardly anybody got paid for the period of lockdown, despite the appeal by the prime minister. About 20 per cent of them also have payments worth more than 7.5 lakh in salaries and wages pending for work done earlier. Overall, the workers stare at a bleak future.

Even though the chief minister announced more than once that needy people will get ration even without a ration card, the fact is that the returnee migrant labourers who dont have ration cards or their names have been struck off from ration cards because they were not staying in their village, are neither getting the regular quota of ration nor the free quota made available during the coronavirus crisis period. Only a little more than 50 per cent of the migrant workers who have returned get their quota of ration. The situation with work under MGNREGA is worse. Less than a third of the people who have returned got work from one to 20 days. But only about a third of them had received payments.

Forgetting that workers have their own agency and rights over their lives, the chief minister had said that if states wanted to re-employ migrant workers they would have to take the UP governments permission. Prem, a native of Sitapur who had been working with his family of six adults in Ludhiana for the last 12 years, laughed at this statement. He said: It is not possible to start factories overnight or even in a few months or a year or two in UP. Our entire family works in factories and earns Rs 55,000 a month. Who will give us that sort of skilled work here? When we left we knew only agricultural work but now we know printing and other works. We will go back as there is no choice.

This article first appeared in the print edition on July 20 under the title Unkept promises to workers. Dhuru works with the National Alliance of Peoples Movements and Pandey, a Magsaysay awardee, is with Socialist Party (India). The writers would like to acknowledge the help of Vishal Kumar, Shivi Piplani and Rakesh in collection, compilation and verification of data.

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Unkept promises to workers - The Indian Express

Pacific states have been urged to ensure migrants can access basic healthcare and essential income support amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) say the situation of temporary seasonal workers is concerning.

In a statement, the UN agency said migrant workers risked slipping into situations of irregularity if they could not or did not wish to return to their home countries.

It said border closures, restrictions on departure and re-entry, expired working visas and loss of employment for many temporary visa holders across the Pacific had left many of them with limited access to alternative livelihood options, adequate food and shelter.

It said these also had implications on the workers' physical and mental health.

The World Bank has called for more jobs to be made available for women in New Zealand and Australia under their respective Pacific labour mobility schemes. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins

The OHCHR said an estimated 330,000 Pacific-born people resided overseas with 2.7 million more temporary visa holders living in Australia and New Zealand.

Thomas Hunecke, the head of OHCHR in the Pacific, said his office continued to track human rights issues across the region.

Mr Hunecke said human rights-based responses to the health crisis were vital in ensuring all "migrants, regardless of their status, have access to basic social security such as healthcare and essential income support".

He said these should be an integral element of the pandemic response in the Pacific.

"In particular, we are concerned that the lack of inclusive income security measures means that many migrants and their families with little reserves would be hardest hit by unemployment and rising prices.

RSE workers from Samoa working in Bostock orchard, Hastings. Photo: RNZ / Anusha Bradley

Meawhile, the IOM Pacific Coordinator Pr Liljert said migrants had played a vital role in supporting countries during the Covid-19 crisis and that safe migration should be part of the recovery process.

Mr Liljert said this could be a potential solution for Pacific countries that received significant GDP contributions from remittances, but equally for countries of destination by filling critical labour market gaps including in essential services like food production.

"At the heart of addressing Covid-19 and building back better are policies and programmes that guarantee the health and safety of migrants, with inclusive public health responses and socioeconomic recovery packages."

Mr Hunecke said as the long process of protecting and rebuilding economies adversely affected by the pandemic got underway, there was a need for Pacific states to ensure their response effectively addressed the disproportionate impact the crisis had on people and communities who were already marginalized and vulnerable.

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UN agencies call for the protection of Pacific migrant workers - RNZ