E-Paper
Yogi govt 2.0@6 months: Investment push fuels trillion-dollar dream
Yogi govt 2.0 takes major steps to boost industrialisation in Uttar Pradesh, but faces challenge of implementation on the ground
Major steps have been taken to attract large investment and boost industrialisation as the Yogi Adityanath government 2.0 completes six months on Sunday. Besides, it has appointed a consultant to draw a roadmap to boost the GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) to a trillion dollars in five years.
Nevertheless, the state government faces the challenge of implementing on the ground what it proposes to achieve in five years.
There is a proposal to hold the Global Investors Summit-2023 in January 2023 to attract ₹10 lakh crore investment.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his two deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak and some senior ministers are likely to hold road shows abroad to attract foreign investment. Besides the USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, UAE, Sweden, Netherlands, Israel, France and Germany, the state government’s teams are expected to visit South Korea, Mauritius, Russia and Australia in October-November 2023.
After the Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit-2018 in February 2018, the state government said it had received proposals for ₹4.68 lakh crore. It claims to have implemented investment proposals of ₹3 lakh crore up to now. It organised the third ground breaking ceremony on June 3 to implement 1406 projects worth ₹80,224 crore and this is expected to provide nearly six lakh jobs.
As for the trillion dollar goal, the GSDP’s size in U.P. has to be taken up to nearly four times in five years (2022-2027) from the present level of about ₹20 lakh crore.
“Uttar Pradesh’s economy has recovered from the Covid-19 impact and is now poised for a big leap forward. However, the challenges remain, especially in regard to making U.P. a trillion-dollar economy by 2027. As per official advance estimates, the GSDP was ₹19.10 lakh crore in 2021-22 and projected GSDP for 2022-23 is ₹20.48 lakh crore. This implies a rate of growth of only 7.22% in 2022-23 .This is much lower than the required annual growth rate of about 32% assuming unchanged rupee-dollar exchange rate of ₹75,” said Prof Yashvir Tyagi, former head of department, Economics, Lucknow University.
“Given the recent heavy depreciation of the rupee, the required rate of growth would be higher and may even be in the range of 35% per annum. This makes the task of achieving the 1 trillion-dollar mark even more daunting,” he added.
The state government, in its own analysis in the state budget for 2022-23, indicated that the GSDP was ₹17.49 crore in 2021-2022 against the budgetary estimates (2021-2022) of ₹21.73 lakh crore. This may mean that the required growth rate to achieve the objective will be higher.
Besides the 296-km Bundelkhand Expressway inaugurated recently, considerable progress has been made on the Gorakhpur Purvanchal Link Expressway. The government has also initiated work on the 594-km Ganga Expressway from Meerut to Prayagraj at a cost of ₹36,230 crore. It has decided to construct Ballia Link Expressway from Ghazipur to Majhighat via Ballia.
Measures are also afoot to set up an international film city land in Noida and many other projects in the Greater Noida region.
