In an important administrative decision, the Uttar Pradesh government has reduced the jurisdiction of Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi. The responsibility of Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), which was with Cabinet Minister Nandi, has now been withdrawn from his ministry. Now UPEDA will come directly under the Infrastructure Development Department under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. After the formation of the government for the second time in 2022, Nandi got the responsibility of Industrial Development, Export Promotion, NRI and Investment Promotion Department.
The Secretariat Administration Department has issued an official order in this regard. According to the order, this step has been taken to remove the problems in distribution of departmental work and confusion in approval of files. The order is signed by Gurrala Srinivasulu, Secretary, Secretariat Administration Department.
UPEDA is considered the most important authority for infrastructure development of the state. Under this, at present the construction work of three link expressways – Chitrakoot Link Expressway, Agra-Lucknow-Purvanchal Link Expressway, Farrukhabad Link Expressway is going on.
Apart from this, five new link expressways are proposed, which include Jewar Link, Jhansi Link, Meerut-Haridwar, Vindhya and Vindhya-Purvanchal Expressway. UPEDA also handles the responsibility of repairing expressways, developing defense industrial corridors and integrated manufacturing and logistics clusters.
There is a huge stir in the political circles regarding this order, which is being said as administratively normal. Sources say that this will reduce the effective jurisdiction of Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi. UPEDA is considered to be the most influential authority of the state and has the biggest budget. Minister Nandi had recently sought clarification from departmental officials several times on the works of UPEDA. Now all major decisions and documents related to UPEDA will pass directly through the Infrastructure Development Department attached to the Chief Minister's Office.
Till now, files related to projects, budget and approvals related to UPEDA used to proceed through Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi. Later, the schemes were taken forward after approval at the CM level. After the implementation of the new system, the files will be cleared directly from the Chief Minister's Office. This will speed up the pace of the schemes. The time taken to get any project off the ground will also be reduced. On the other hand, the dispute that emerged in the transfer session between Minister Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi and Additional Chief Secretary Alok Kumar is being considered as a dispute. After which the matter reached the CM. It has also come to light that questions were raised at the ministerial level on the appointment of officers in UPEDA. In such a situation, UPEDA was linked to CM Yogi Adityanath.
Yes. In the order issued by Srinivasulu, the works of the Infrastructure Development Section were mentioned. In which it is said that the work of expressway projects under UPEDA has been distributed under Section 3 of the Industrial Development Department. The Infrastructure Development Section is responsible for policy formulation and coordination on the basis of public sector, private sector or public-private partnership for the development of infrastructure facilities beyond the prescribed cost limit. It has been said in the order that changes have been made to make it easier to resolve conflicts in the allocation of work and related documents. All work related to UPEDA has been handed over to the Infrastructure Development Section with immediate effect.
