The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government has eased the norms of setting up a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) units in the state as the state cabinet has approved a draft bill that proposes to exempt MSMEs from certain approvals and inspections required for their establishment, and operations in the initial years.
As per the new UP MSME (Establishment and Operations) Act of 2020, cleared by the cabinet, a person will have to make an application through a “Declaration of Intent” to the District Level Nodal Agency (DLNA), which will have to issue an acknowledgement within 72 hours of receiving the application. On the basis of this acknowledgement, one will be able to establish their unit.
According to the draft rules, an acknowledgement certificate will remain valid for 1,000 days from the day it is issued. An investor will have 1000 days to get the necessary clearances after the first go-ahead.
However, units producing products like tobacco, gutka, pan masala etc, alcohol, carbonated drinks, firecrackers, plastic bags of 40 microns or less or as banned by the government from time to time, any other item banned by the government and those units which are identified by UP Pollution Control Board as red category will not be covered by the act.
The DLNA will be headed by the respective District Magistrate (DMs) and have as members the additional DM, district official of UPPCB, superintendent engineer of district power corporation, additional director of power safety, district manager of UPSIDC, additional labour commissioner or assistant labour commissioner, district fire officer and additional commissioner of the district industries and enterprise promotion centre. If, for any reason, the DLNA is unable to meet, then applications will be cleared through circulation.
A high-level state empowered committee, headed by the chief secretary and with additional CS, principal secretary and secretary MSME as its member secretary, will work to resolve policy or interdepartmental issues.