Uttar Pradesh under Yogi is making waves
From being derided as a ‘Bimaru’ State since Independence, it has come a long way and is now attracting significant investment
India’s largest State Uttar Pradesh and also its most vibrant, politically speaking, has moved in the field of development the fastest. Be it in the layout of highways, appointments to Government services, providing employment to the State’s vast population, increasing investments, law and order, encouragement to tourism and pilgrimage as well as expanding the small and medium enterprises sector, Uttar Pradesh is making waves.
All these years since Independence, one has never heard that the largest State of the country had ever moved significantly in the area of development. It is surprising that New Delhi did not bother; perhaps ignoring the fact that UP is one-fifth of India. If, therefore, UP leaps in progress, the country races ahead in terms of development. Evidently, for the powers-that-be in India’s rajdhani, UP was treated as a bank of 84 Lok Sabha seats (80 now) and a sure-shot ticket to parliamentary majority at the Centre, but nothing more. In fact, the head of a former ruling dynasty was reported to have voiced an opinion in favour of keeping Uttar Pradesh backward fragmented as that alone could help maintain this particular dynasty maintain its hegemony on power at the Centre!
Uttar Pradesh today, in 2021, is a vastly changed place. From the backwaters of most economic indices, the State today has moved to becoming India’s second richest in terms of gross state domestic product (GSDP), which for the State stands at $268 billion (financial year 2020-21 figures), behind only Maharashtra now. This, under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, has been an achievement that has been clocked despite the ravages of COVID-19. In the ease of doing business, a crucial global benchmark anywhere, UP, which languished at 16th position in the country in 2016, has moved up to the second rank among Indian States.
Law and order, the most important prerequisite for any developmental activity to flower, was never a strong suite in Uttar Pradesh before Adityanath took over. Any economic or capital investment in the State remained a dream. The scenario after Yogi’s coming to office in March 2017 is a sharp contrast. Over the past four and a half years, 137 criminals have been liquidated in police action, while close to 3,000 criminals were injured; nearly 37,000 accused have been booked under the Gangster Act and over 500 under the National Security Act. The Yogi administration has also hit criminals hard by targeting their finances; in the Government’s drive against the mafia, their illicit property worth approximately Rs 1,580 crore has either been attached or demolished. Along with action against the mafia, Adityanath has also provided protection to witnesses.
Vastly improved law and order has begun to pay off in the realm of development. Here, too, figures speak for themselves. The State’s industrial development data reveals that over the years, UP has received investment proposals worth Rs 66,000 crore from both foreign and local investors. The administration has been acting quickly on these proposals. More to the point, companies from Japan, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the UK, the US and South Korea are lining up to invest in UP; one company has even returned from China to set up operations in Agra. It is also significant that Yogi’s Government is ensuring that the flow of investment is not restricted to the bigger cities, it is being channeled to smaller towns like Etah, Amroha, Mirzapur, and so on.
Yogi has adopted an investor-friendly policy. Apart from the fresh proposals for investment, MoUs worth Rs 4.68 lakh crore have been signed at investor summits, of which 371 proposals worth close to Rs 3 lakh crore are already functional, generating employment for up to 5 lakh people. Here, one must mention the work being done by the State Government on the defence industrial manufacturing corridor, which has already drawn in up to 14 MoUs. The aim is to transform UP into a hub of capital-intensive manufacturing, which the defence industry invariably entails.
Farmers, a community very much in the news these days, have much to be happy about under Yogi’s rule. Development schemes and programmes for their long-term success also need the health of the rural economy to be robust. And the rural economy, of course, includes farmers. Adityanath’s transparent policy of wheat and paddy purchase, as also his continuous supervision of purchase centres, has been successful. Take paddy, for instance; the State Government has purchased a record 60 lakh metric tonnes of the crop against a slated target of 55 lakh metric tonnes. Payments made to the State’s farmers have been touching new records as well. The Chief Minister has accelerated his efforts to double the income of the State’s farmers. Nearly Rs 33,000 crore have been transferred to the accounts of about 3 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, plus separate transfers under crop insurance schemes. The modernisation and expansion of 20 sugar mills in the State, along with the reopening of the Pipraich, Munderwa and Ramala sugar mills, is a significant milestone in the administration’s agriculture policy. Uttar Pradesh under Yogi is clearly not the “Bimaru” State it was once derided as, under earlier dispensations that only milked the State politically.
(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal.)
Source: The Pioneer
