Uttar Pradesh is looking to leverage the slew of leather industry sops announced in the Union Budget 2025-26.
India is aiming to clock leather and footwear exports of $50 billion by 2030 against roughly $5 billion at present.
In Union Budget, the Narendra Modi government announced footwear and leather industry incentives to boost productivity, foster competitiveness and exports.
Per the Council for Leather Exports (CLE), these schemes will promote design capacity, component manufacturing, and non-leather footwear.
In this backdrop, UP which ranks among the leading leather industry centres, is drafting a new leather and footwear policy to promote the labour and capital intensive sector.
UP leather industry, encompassing two main hubs of Unnao-Kanpur and Agra, is estimated at Rs 20,000 crore including exports.
The proposed policy will align with the Union Budget proposals to help the UP leather industry gain traction of the central government incentives.
The policy will bolster the industry contours spanning financial support, technological upgradation and subsidy to leather and footwear manufacturers and exporters.
The Yogi Adityanath government UP will target the primary export markets in Africa, Latin America, West Asia, USA and Europe.
The proposed policy will also seek to develop integrated leather clusters in Kanpur and Agra.