 "BS Samriddhi 2024: Uttar Pradesh gets working to be India's 'growth engine'")
In the past seven and a half years, ever since the Yogi Adityanath government took office in mid-March 2017, Uttar Pradesh (UP) has seen multi-faceted development. It attracted investment proposals worth Rs 40 trillion in 2023, and its focus has been not only on constructing the country’s largest network of expressways, the most airports in any state, improving its power supply, and its ease of doing business (EODB) ranking but also on providing technological solutions and export incentives to its micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), especially those associated with traditional crafts, and promoting cultural tourism.
In his address to the recent Business Standard Samriddhi roundtable in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath said the state’s rapid cultural, economic, and industrial growth since 2017 has been driven by its zero tolerance towards crime.
Adityanath, UP’s longest-serving CM, detailed his government’s efforts to improve the investment climate and said it was the only way to provide jobs. He said the investment proposals of Rs 40 trillion would create 15 million jobs for the state’s youth. He elaborated on how his government has supported traditional MSMEs, such as Moradabad’s brass industry, Firozabad’s glass industry, Bhadohi’s carpet manufacturers, and the state’s farm sector.
In his nearly hour-long speech at the event, the CM said that his government has “ruthlessly” crushed mafia groups and that rioters now know their actions will have consequences.
“From the lawlessness of ‘one district, one mafia’ during the rule of the previous governments, the state has transitioned to ‘one district, one product (ODOP)’,” the CM said, adding that the crackdown on land mafias by the anti-land mafia squad has now freed 64,000 hectares of land. “Today, there is no scarcity of land for setting up businesses and for infrastructure development,” he said.
The CM said that when his government took over, the size of the annual budget of a large state like UP, with a population of 220 million people, was a meagre Rs 2 trillion, which is now Rs 7.5 trillion. He said the state was on course to achieving its objective of becoming a $1 trillion economy and that UP was ready to contribute and play its role as a “growth engine” to help achieve Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s vision of making India a $5 trillion economy.
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Adityanath said over the past seven years, UP’s EODB ranking has improved from 14 in 2016–17 to no. 2 in 2019, and today it is the top achiever in EODB. He said the state’s economy was no. 7, behind Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, and some other states.
“Today, I can say with confidence that we are the no. 2 economy in the country, the fastest emerging economy, and competing for the top spot. We have also carried out reforms in the farm sector,” he said.
During his speech, Adityanath said UP is home to 250 million people, with low-cost as well as skilled and sufficient human resources, fertile land, and water resources, with Kashi and Prayagraj having been ancient centres of knowledge, education, and learning.
“It was a resource-rich state,” Adityanath said, wondering why it was that, despite this, the state lost its way, couldn’t establish itself as an economic powerhouse, failed to keep in step with the times, and its residents faced an identity crisis.
There was a time, he said, when UP’s residents, when travelling to other states, were viewed with suspicion, failed to get accommodations, hotel rooms, even jobs, and were unacceptable as business partners.
“My priority, when we formed the government in March 2017, was to turn around UP, and I asked the industrial development minister and industries commissioner in August to take steps. In October, they suggested that we should hold a global investment summit,” he said.
To their reply to the CM’s question that the event should target inviting investment proposals of Rs 20,000 crore, Adityanath said he told them that this would invite ridicule and asked them to remove the word ‘global’ and call it the ‘UP Investor Summit’.
The CM guaranteed them that he would reach out to entrepreneurs and raise at least Rs 2 trillion in investment proposals. The government did roadshows in several cities, Adityanath met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invite him to the summit and visited Mumbai to persuade investors. He said the event was held on February 21–22, 2018, and resulted in investment proposals worth Rs 2.5 trillion. Subsequently, the global investor summit in 2023 attracted investment proposals worth Rs 40 trillion.
“Why were entrepreneurs unwilling to invest in UP? Who were the people responsible for the state of affairs?” Adityanath asked, blaming the functioning of the previous governments of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, and Congress, who created an atmosphere of lawlessness and anarchy, where neither common citizens nor businesspersons were safe, and where rioting took place every day in one or another part of the state.
Adityanath said the second reason was the state's ill-tempered bureaucracy, which would spoil even good work, was sycophantic towards the ruling political leaders and had no vision for UP, such as the state lacking a policy for creating a land bank for projects.
“Even where policies were framed, these were arbitrary, discretionary, favoured ruling government ministers, and discriminated against genuine investors and entrepreneurs,” the CM said, citing how a minister was allowed to set up a university on a 10-acre plot, but an educationist, who wished to set up a university, was asked to show 100 acres.
The CM said his government has framed policies for a wide range of sectors, almost 27–28 policies, including for defence and aerospace, semiconductor, logistics, compressed biogas, and others, but at the heart of these policies is the objective of generating jobs for the state’s youth.
Underlining how good law and order is the foundation of a better investment and business climate, Adityanath said that there was a time (in 2017) when he thought he would struggle to get investment proposals of a mere Rs 20,000 crore, but in 2023 UP Investor Summit, the government received proposals worth Rs 40 trillion. He said this would directly provide 15 million jobs.
“No government can provide these many jobs in such a short time. Yes, it can fill vacancies, as we did by filling 154,000 vacancies in the state’s police force in phases, but that was a one-off. Only business can provide 15 million jobs. UP has strived for this, and the results are in front of all of you,” the CM said.
Adityanath said the country’s topmost entrepreneurs and industrialists are queuing up to invest in India, but for that, the government undertook several reforms to create a positive atmosphere for investment. He said the previous government nourished ‘one district, one mafia’, because its investments were in the mafia, with the result that it destroyed UP, with these mafia and goons wreaking disorder and anarchy, where “neither our daughters were safe nor our entrepreneurs”.
At the time, he said, UP’s population was 200–220 million, but its annual budget was a measly Rs 2 trillion, which his government has increased in the past seven and a half years to Rs 7.5 trillion, and expanded its GSDP from Rs 12 trillion to Rs 23–24 trillion, which would surpass Rs 32 trillion by the end of the current financial year in March 2025.
“We created an atmosphere of zero tolerance towards crime, encouraged and enthused people, took confidence-building measures, and created a land bank for projects,” he said. In the process, the government faced several challenges, but it crushed the mafia as ruthlessly as it harassed the state’s daughters and entrepreneurs.
“Today, UP is safe. Rioters know that there will be consequences, but for that, we had to raise the morale of our police force, which we did by providing them adequate training and technology,” he said.
Adityanath said that of the 400,000-member police force, almost half of the posts were vacant, and at least 25 per cent of personnel were deployed for the security of the leaders of a political party and professional criminals, but there was no security for common citizens and entrepreneurs. His government withdrew this security, he said.
The government set up an anti-land mafia squad. “Earlier, investors would say that it is difficult to find land. Today, there is no scarcity of land (for projects). The anti-land mafia squad has recovered 64,000 acres of public and private land from the clutches of the land mafia,” he said.
Adityanath said his government also provided technological solutions to investors, such as a single window system, called the Nivesh Mitra portal, where more than 450 no-objection certificates are available to investors on a single platform.
Another portal, Nivesh Sarathi, is dedicated to the online monitoring of investment proposals and has almost zero human intervention. The distribution of tax incentives to entrepreneurs is done online, and recently, Rs 1,300 crore in incentives was disbursed, he said.
The CM detailed the steps taken to help farmers, as well as in the dairy and animal husbandry sectors. He said his government focused on improving the state’s road network, and UP’s expressways are the country’s best, with the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand Expressways completed.
The main carriageway of the Ganga Expressway will be inaugurated early next year. Work is also ongoing on the Gorakhpur Link and Ballia Link Expressways, and the Lucknow-Kanpur Greenfield Expressway. He said that the country’s first 12-lane Delhi-Meerut Expressway is operational, along with the first rapid rail transit between the two cities. He also noted that six of UP’s cities are connected with Metro networks, and the state has the country’s first waterway from Varanasi to Haldia.
The CM said the government has assisted ODOP across the state’s 75 districts, including applying for a Geographical Indication tag for each. Mangoes produced in the state are being exported to the US and Russia, as are brass parts from Moradabad, carpets from Bhadohi, and glassware from Firozabad.
“The factory owners in Moradabad were in despair when I visited them. They were being harassed by the pollution control board and other agencies. They lacked technology support and access to better design, and we helped. Today, its exports are worth Rs 16,000 crore,” he said, adding that Bhadohi’s carpet industry is selling products worth Rs 8,000 crore, Firozabad’s glass industry Rs 2,500–3,000 crore, and Meerut has regained its position as the world’s foremost sports goods manufacturer.
The CM said the support to traditional crafts, agriculture, dairy, animal husbandry, and MSMEs contributes to the PM’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Vocal for Local campaigns but also realises “Pujya Bapu’s (Mahatma Gandhi’s)” conception of gram swaraj.
Adityanath said in the 16th century, India’s economy accounted for 25 per cent of the world economy, but foreign invaders decimated the country’s artisans and businesspersons.
“There was a time when India was an economic leader, and behind that were our traditional businesses and artisans, but today, look where we have reached,” he said, underlining how MSMEs form the base for bigger investments, provide jobs, and contribute to economic growth.
Reciting a shloka from the Bhagavad Gita, ‘krishi gaurakshya vanijyam vaisya karma swabhavjam’, Adityanath said ancient India included agriculture and cow protection as part of mercantile activities, but it was in later centuries that these were separated and restricted to financial give and take. However, if one were to look at it holistically, agriculture, cow protection, and animal husbandry are not separate from business activity.
Speaking at a subsequent panel discussion on environmental protection with infrastructure and tourism development, former Indian Administrative Service officer and advisor to the UP CM, Awanish Kumar Awasthi, attributed the state’s economic growth to ‘Yoginomics’.
Awasthi said the key tenets of ‘Yoginomics’ are the absolute enforcement of the rule of law, the use of technology as a force multiplier for government departments, ensuring that the state becomes no. 1 in achieving the targets of the Centre’s schemes, such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, making UP the top state in farm produce, particularly foodgrain, generating employment for youth, providing a safe working environment for women, infrastructure construction, and focusing the budget on capital expenditure rather than disbursing freebies.
Addressing the event, UP’s Cabinet minister for industrial development, export, and investment promotion, Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’, said Adityanath’s leadership has heralded multifaceted development in UP, including cultural revival and prosperity. He cited the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Kashi Vishwanath corridor as being accompanied by industrial growth. He also said the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has witnessed tremendous footfall of tourists, reinvigorating and strengthening the Ayodhya-Kashi and Mathura economic ecosystem.
Towards trillion-dollar economy
Uttar Pradesh’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) is projected to exceed Rs 32 trillion in FY24-25
Annual Budget growth: From Rs 2 trillion, the Budget crossed Rs 7.5 trillion in FY24-25
> In February 2023, MoUs worth Rs 33.5 trillion were signed during the Global Investors Summit. Within a year, projects worth Rs 10 trillion have commenced
> Economic acceleration: Manufacturing and exports have seen unprecedented growth through initiatives like One District One Product (ODOP) and various industrial corridors
Boosting infrastructure
Expressways: Six expressways have already been constructed, and seven more will be completed soon
Industrial growth: Areas such as the Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad Investment Zone and the Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority are providing industries with robust infrastructure
Sectoral focus: Industrial corridors are being developed for manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, electronics, automotive, heavy equipment, aerospace and defence, logistics and warehousing, and agritech
Land bank creation: Idle or closed factory lands are being converted into a large land banks with the help of authorities and other departments
Multimodal connectivity: The country’s first waterway has been launched between Varanasi and Haldia. Key projects include a multimodal transport hub in Varanasi and a logistics hub in Gautam Buddh Nagar