 "How UP's CM is shaping growth with bold reforms, visionary governance")
Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath has emerged as a ‘Vikas Purush’ (growth leader) of the state. UP’s all-around rapid growth, spanning its economy, cultural tourism, agriculture production, and the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector in the past seven years, has had the state’s policymakers credit it to ‘Yoginomics’.
At the recent Business Standard Samriddhi event held in Lucknow, Awanish Kumar Awasthi, advisor to the UP CM, elaborated upon the tenets of Yoginomics. He said the first step in Yoginomics is the absolute enforcement of the rule of law and zero tolerance for crime.
In August, while addressing the UP Assembly, Adityanath cited data from the National Crime Records Bureau to buttress his claim that the crime rate was lower during the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s tenure since 2017 compared to the preceding Samajwadi Party government. The UP CM said that there has been a decline of 78.17 per cent in cases of robbery, 70 per cent in cases of kidnapping for ransom, 67.42 per cent in riots, and 43.21 per cent in murders.
Second, Awasthi said, was to provide each government department access to the latest technology to facilitate maximum coverage of the government’s welfare schemes, both those of the Centre and the UP government. UP should be no. 1 in the number of beneficiaries covered in the central government schemes and ensure cent per cent saturation of schemes of the state government, he said.
Currently, UP is no. 1 in the country in the number of beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. It is the topmost state in the country in the coverage of the Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana and also in the Pradhan Mantri Swachh Bharat Yojana.
UP, Awasthi said, is also the no. 1 producer in the country of foodgrain, potato production, milk production, and peas. “The fundamental point here is that UP, given its expanse of fertile land, human resources, and young demography, should be no. 1 in all aspects of the economy, including agriculture, tourism, and the rest,” he said.
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The third tenet of Yoginomics is to provide jobs to each and every individual in the state, especially a safe working environment for the state’s women population. He said employment generation and skilling are among the focus areas but acknowledged that the state needs to do more work. It is here, he said, that the newly launched scheme that promises an interest-free loan of Rs 5 lakh for youth will come in handy.
Yoginomics is also about investments in and expansion of infrastructure, with UP now proud of having the country’s largest network of expressways and highways and the most airports in the country.
“I couldn’t have imagined in 1997-98, when I served in Ayodhya, that it would one day have an international airport,” he said.
At the initiative of Adityanath, who is now the longest-serving CM of UP (Govind Ballabh Pant served as the prime minister of the United Provinces for almost four years from 1946-50 before serving as the renamed state’s first CM for five years), who was then the Gorakhpur Member of Parliament, the first flight was operated from there with people saying that it wouldn’t get passengers. “Today, 18 flights operate from Gorakhpur,” Awasthi said.
Similarly, the Varanasi airport has become an aviation hub, and there are airports in Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, and a beautiful tabletop airport in Chitrakoot, he said.
Lucknow is the fastest-growing airport in numbers in the country, and UP will soon cater to 1 million passengers. The Jewar Airport, pending since 2008-09 and expedited after Adityanath became the CM of UP, will start operations soon, he said, praising the “good work” that has happened in the aviation sector in UP.
Another key tenet of Yoginomics is to not offer “freebies” in the state budgets but instead allocate money for infrastructure projects to pave the way for the state’s growth, which, in a nutshell, is Yoginomics, Awasthi said.
Some challenges remain, such as taking the work in the aviation sector, construction of expressways, logistic hubs, and improving villages to the next level.
Yoginomics, the state’s planners expect, will dovetail into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aim of making India a $5 trillion economy and become its growth engine. Two years ago, the UP CM said since the state has a 250 million population, its contribution to achieving the $5 trillion economy objective should be commensurate.
The speed and scale at which the state is witnessing growth can be gauged from the fact that in 2017, the budget for the department of horticulture in the state was Rs 94 lakh, which has now grown to almost Rs 131 lakh, a jump of nearly 40 per cent.
“Before 2017, the maximum rise in the budget that any department could dream of was just 10-15 per cent, which clearly shows that our scale has increased manifold,” Awasthi said.
A key aspect of Yoginomics is the growth in cultural tourism. The budget of the tourism department of UP has increased tenfold from Rs 200 crore. Last year, UP hosted 480 million tourists, and this year, with the Maha Kumbh Mela taking place in Prayagraj in January-February, the cumulative tourist footfall is likely to be 580 million to 600 million, Awasthi said. If earlier, Tirupati was the most sought-after destination, now it is Varanasi and Ayodhya, and 200,000 tourists visit the latter every day.
But along with that, the state government is working for environmental protection and cleaning UP’s rivers.
“If you had visited the last Kumbh, then please visit the Kumbh this time, and you will see how much cleaner the water is at Prayagraj,” Awasthi said.
Rahees Singh, media advisor to the UP CM, said Adityanath’s tenure has changed the perception of UP from what it was before 2017. He said Adityanath’s economic model has its roots in India’s ancient wisdom, in the Vedas, which speak of peace and cultural economic growth. “In Prayagraj, we are setting up a city for the Maha Kumbh Mela that will be spread over 4,000 hectares.”
The CM has also linked big industries and manufacturers with the MSME sector and provided opportunities to the micro sector as well. For example, in Ayodhya, it helps the local artisans if 5.5 million earthen lamps (diyas) are lit on the occasion of the festival of Deepavali, Singh said.
“The UP CM’s steps and schemes have transformed how people get their livelihoods, but unfortunately, there is little analysis and study of that,” Singh said.
The recent international trade show in Noida witnessed a 56 per cent growth in the number of participants, and most of them were there enthused by the UP government’s ‘one district, one product’ (ODOP) scheme, which was the brainchild of Adityanath, who spoke about it on the UP Diwas in 2018, Singh said.
The economic model of Adityanath was evident during the pandemic when he instructed officials that not even a single industrial unit should get shut down because of the adversity. Now, of the 75 districts, at least 60 districts have their own identities because of ODOP, which has reduced the pressure on agriculture to provide work, and it is also environment-friendly, he said.
Few leaders and policy planners, Singh said, had earlier focused on sub-regional economic blocs in the state, which Adityanath’s government has done. On cultural economy, the work done in Varanasi, Devi Patan Temple (near Balarampur), and Naimisharanya Dham (in Sitapur) has meant more devout visitors to these religious places and transformed their economies.
In this progress, women have played a crucial role, Singh said, whether as 58,000 banking sakhis, or banking correspondents, bijli sakhis, and 100,000 women self-help groups. The money earned by women has economic spinoffs, as it goes to take care of their families’ medical expenses and the education of their children.
“All these steps, including the work on the green economy, are gradually changing the lives of UP’s 250 million people. It is a dramatic change, and when it blooms, the transformation will surprise people when they think that it is the same UP of 2017,” he said.