E-Paper
UP may have to tweak timeline for trillion dollar economy
The Uttar Pradesh government may have to tweak a bit the timeline set to achieve the objective of making the state a trillion dollar economy in five years.
The Uttar Pradesh government may have to tweak a bit the timeline set to achieve the objective of making the state a trillion dollar economy in five years.
A delay is expected in the selection of the consultant to work out a roadmap to take the state’s GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) to the one trillion dollar level by 2025.
Such a delay may occur following the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to amend the request for proposal (RFP) and timelines to accommodate suggestions made at an online pre-bid meeting held on June 29.
A 41-page comprehensive request for proposal (RFP), along with an approved timeline, was provided online as the state government invited e-bids ‘for selection of consultant to provide services to boost up the size of GSDP of Uttar Pradesh to one trillion dollars in five years (2020-2025)’.
“An important amendment is expected in RFP following suggestions received at the online pre-bid meeting held on June 29, 2020. An amended RFP with new timeline will soon be uploaded on the website of the planning department and the e-tender portal after seeking permission from competent levels,” said Ankit Kumar Agarwal, special secretary, planning department, in a notice dated July 15.
Although a definite date for commencement of work by the consultant was not quoted in the present RFP, the timelines given therein mentioned July 27, 2020 for presentation and evaluation of the technical bids.
“We are not sure about the revised timeline for completing the bidding process. A meeting of the high powered committee chaired by the chief secretary has considered the amendments on July 3, 2020 and the revised RFP will be sent to the state cabinet’s approval soon,” said a senior officer on condition of anonymity.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has time and again said the state government will be working hard to achieve the objective of taking the state’s GSDP to one trillion level in five years.
Will the process of amendment to RFP have an impact on the timeline?
“There has been no deviation and no change has been made in the timeline for achieving the objective of making the state a trillion dollar economy in five years,” said KB Raju, advisor, finance, to the chief minister.
A GSDP of Rs 15.80 lakh crore (US $ 230 billion) has been quoted for 2018-2019 in RFP floated online with economy witnessing 7% growth over the previous year. With the state government’s tax revenue coming down considerably in the fight against the Covid-19 , the state’s growth rate is likely to be adversely affected and such a situation will throw more challenges to policy makers.
“It’s good that the state government has taken the initiative of working out a roadmap for making the state a trillion dollar economy. Since the timeline for RFP is being revised, the state government will have to redouble its efforts to meet the objective of a trillion dollar economy. The current year is already a difficult one in view of Covid-19 pandemic and this will add to state government’s challenges,” said Yashvir Tyagi, professor (retired) of economics, Lucknow University.
