Uttar Pradesh Leather and Footwear Policy-2025 | 30 Apr 2025

Why in News?

The Uttar Pradesh government is set to approve the Leather and Footwear Policy-2025.

About the Policy:
- Objective:
  - To increase production capacity.
  - Encouraging exports and enhancing global brand presence.
  - To make the state economically strong by increasing revenue. To realize the vision of making Uttar Pradesh an "enterprise state".
- Strategic Initiatives:
  - Kanpur will be given a central role in this regional development strategy.
  - This will boost regional development in cities like Agra, Kanpur, Unnao , Lucknow and Bareilly .
- Promotion of private industrial parks:
  - Incentives such as capital subsidy and 100% per cent stamp duty exemption to private investors .
  - It is mandatory to develop all parks within 5 years .
  - At least 25% of the land must be reserved for green and open areas.
  - Each entity (plant, cluster or park) will have to make a minimum investment of Rs 150-200 crore .
  - One unit is likely to generate 1,000 to 3,000 employment opportunities.
Current Scenario:
- Uttar Pradesh has a 46% share in the total leather exported from India .
- Agra is considered the footwear capital and Kanpur, the global hub for safety footwear and leather goods.
Importance:
- This policy will help Uttar Pradesh to emerge as an industrial hub in line with the “Make in India” and “Local to Global” initiatives .

Introduction:
- Launched in 2014, Make in India aims to transform the country into a leading global manufacturing and investment destination .
- This campaign was launched to facilitate investments, promote innovation and skill development, protect intellectual property and build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure.
Goal:
- To increase the growth rate of the manufacturing sector to 12-14% per annum.
- To create 100 million additional manufacturing jobs by 2022 (revised date 2025).
- To increase the contribution of the manufacturing sector to GDP to 25% by the year 2025.