SEEKING AN ECONOMIC MIRACLE
With a Rs 5.13 lakh crore budget for 2020-21—the largest in Uttar Pradesh’s history—and plans to build vast amounts of new infrastructure, including 11 airports, seven universities and 28 medical colleges, the Yogi Adityanathled state government has made notable efforts to achieve its stated aim of growing the state’s economy past the $1 trillion mark by 2024. Over the past three years, it has also made a major push to reduce regional inequality across the state’s districts by fast-tracking infrastructure, education and health-related development in the state’s poorer regions—Purvanchal, Madhyanchal and Bundelkhand. However, the economic shock of the coronavirus crisis has raised a major challenge going forward. If Chief Minister Adityanath proves able to pull the state out of its low per capita income trap, improve wages and labour productivity and create the jobs required for a structural transformation of the state, he is likely to leave a deep impact on Uttar Pradesh, bettering his chances of making a strong comeback in 2022.
“In the COVID-19 crisis, Chief Minister Adityanath has proved an astute administrator in the process of bringing migrant workers and students back home”
PROF. BADRI NARAYAN Director, Govind Ballabh Pant Institute, Prayagraj
THE COVID-19 CRISIS
As early as March 27 this year, just two days after the national lockdown was implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19, CM Adityanath had begun discussions within his government on how to tackle the migrant exodus. He quickly fired up the bureaucracy, arranging for thousands of buses in April to carry migrant workers who wanted to leave UP back to their home states. From May 4, as the movement of migrant workers across the country began to gather steam, thousands of returning migrants began arriving at the Charbagh railway station in Lucknow every day, aboard Shramik Special trains from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Senior government officials were tasked with arranging food, water and quarantine facilities, with the Adityanath administration promising Rs 1,000 to each returning migrant, three months of free rations and announcing plans to provide jobs. “About 800,000 migrant workers have been provided fresh ration cards. We see them as the main strength of Uttar Pradesh,” says Sidharth Nath Singh, state minister for exports, investment and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises). Senior officials were also appointed as nodal officers to liaise with other state governments to ease the return process. “By June 3, over 3 million migrants had returned [to UP],” says additional chief secretary Awanish Awasthi. “They have been provided transport, food, medicines and accommodation
