LUCKNOW: Stepping into the final year of its term on Friday, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to mark the event under the theme ‘Reform, Perform, Transform’. There will be week-long celebrations at all district headquarters March 19 onwards. Each day will be dedicated to a separate segment of society, such as women, traders, farmers, and others. Officials will interact with people about various initiatives and schemes.
A 64-page booklet ‘4 years of service & good governance, opportunities in disaster’ released by the state government has a long list of achievements and some challenges. The list opens with the largest-ever `5.5 lakh crore state budget for 2021-22 which, the government claims, is a confident step towards making UP a $1 trillion economy.
“UP is ahead of other states in implementing 44 development schemes… this record has been achieved when the world was struggling with Covid-19. By making arrangements to handle it properly, the state turned this disaster into an opportunity,” it says. It claims the state’s GSDP has gone up in the last four years from Rs 10.9 lakh crore to Rs 21.73 lakh crore, establishing UP as the second biggest economy in the country and getting out of the list of ‘BIMARU’ states.
It refers to a report of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy to make a point about the rate of unemployment coming down from 17.5% in 2017 to 4.1% on February 28, 2021 in the state. However, the state government is tasked with filling a large number of vacancies across various departments.
“In the global scenario of negative growth during the pandemic, where India suffered a negative growth of nearly 25% for a while, UP showed exceptional tax buoyancy. Almost all taxes showed high buoyancy, which may be reflective of the extraordinary resilience that the state demonstrates,” said Arvind Mohan, professor of economics at Lucknow University.
However, Yashvir Tyagi, former professor of economics, cautioned the government over per capita income. He suggests that the government should continue to make investment in areas such as education, health and social welfare so as to improve its rank in human development.