How Uttar Pradesh performed in Yogi Adityanath’s first term | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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How Uttar Pradesh performed in Yogi Adityanath’s first term

ByAbhishek Jha, New Delhi
Mar 28, 2022 02:04 PM IST

Yogi Adityanath of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to return to the position for a consecutive term after serving a full tenure

Yogi Adityanath of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to return to the position for a consecutive term after serving a full tenure. He will preside over the progress or the lack of it in India’s most populous state, accounting for 17% of the country’s population in 2021, according to projections by the National Commission on Population. How did the state change during the first Adityanath government? Here are the numbers that capture the change. It has to be kept in mind that the last two years of his first tenure was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic that derailed normal economic activity.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.(ANI) PREMIUM
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.(ANI)

Economic growth

Although Uttar Pradesh makes up 17% of India’s population, it contributes only about half of that share to India’s income. The state’s GDP was 7.9% of India’s GDP between 2017-18 and 2021-22, Adityanath’s first term. It was slightly lower than the state’s 8.1% contribution between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the term of Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Adityanath’s predecessor.

The lower contribution during Adityanath’s term was because of slower growth. The state’s GDP grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9% during his tenure in real terms, 0.79 times the national rate of 3.7%. During Yadav’s term, the CAGR of the state’s GDP was 6.9%, 0.97 times the national rate of 7.1%.

These numbers need to be read with the fact that the Indian economy suffered a huge contraction in 2020-21 due to the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infections. Even in 2021-22, the economy has barely managed to surpass pre-pandemic levels. From 2017-18 to 2019-20, the CAGR of India’s GDP was 5.7% and that of Uttar Pradesh was 4%.

The state’s ranking in per capita GDP did not change during Adityanath’s term. It was ranked only above Bihar in GDP per capita among 32 states and Union territories for which data has been compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

However, the state’s per capita GDP became slightly lower compared to the national average. On average, it was 48.7% of the national GDP per capita between 2012-13 and 2016-17, and 47.3% during 2017-18 to 2020-21, latest year for which data is available for both India and Uttar Pradesh (Chart 1).

Employment in different sectors

One reason for the state’s lower contribution to the national economy is that half of the state’s population is employed in agriculture, a sector that contributes only around 20% to the state’s gross value added (GVA). The share of workers employed in agriculture was 52.4% in the 2011-12 Employment Unemployment Survey of the National Statistical Office. This decreased to 48.7% by the 2017-18 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).

During Adityanath’s term, this share increased to 50% in 2018-19 and 51.5% in 2019-20, the latest available number. Since the PLFS has a July-June annual calendar, the 2019-20 numbers include the period of the first lockdown, which was imposed on March 25, 2020.

The industrial sector, on the other hand, employs roughly the same share of people in Uttar Pradesh as its contribution to the state’s GVA. During Yadav’s tenure, the share of industry in the GVA was 28.4%, and that of manufacturing was 14.3%. This changed to 27.7% and 14%, respectively, during Adityanath’s term.

These trends went hand-in-hand with the share of workers employed in these sectors. Industry and specifically manufacturing industry workers were 26.3% and 12.8%, respectively, in 2011-12. These numbers changed to 25.4% and 11.4% in 2017-18; 24.7% and 10.5% in 2018-19; and 24.5% and 10.5% in 2019-20 (Chart 2).

Fiscal health

Did the fiscal health of the state change during Adityanath’s first term? Its borrowing needs were decreasing before the pandemic, but have substantially increased afterwards. Gross fiscal deficit of the state was 2.34% in 2012-13, which increased to 4.34% by 2016-17. From 2017-18 to 2019-20, this number was 1.93%, 2.22%, minus 0.65%, and then increased sharply during the pandemic to 4.7% in 2020-21. The 2021-22 budget estimated this deficit to be 4.7%.

Human development indicators

Uttar Pradesh is ranked low on several indicators of human development, an earlier HT analysis had pointed out (https://bit.ly/3wArl2C). However, out of 21 indicators from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) fact sheets that HT had analysed, Uttar Pradesh improved its rank by more than one between the NFHS rounds in 2015-16 and 2019-21 on 11 indicators, by one rank on four, and not improved its rank on three (Chart 3).

Its rank worsened by one on three indicators: the share of households with any member covered with health insurance, population share living in households with electricity, and share of married women who have experienced spousal violence. While these indicators are not exhaustive, they suggest a trend of some aspects of human development in Uttar Pradesh pulling ahead of other states.

How did Adityanath perform compared to Yadav on human development? Only 18 of the 21 indicators discussed above are present in the NFHS fact sheets going back to 2005-06, the NFHS round before the one in 2015-16. The simple annual growth or decline (for negative indicators) rate was higher during the 2015-16 to 2019-21 compared to 2005-06 to 2019-21 period in seven of them.

Of these seven, five are related to mother and child nutrition, one related to access to clean cooking fuel, and one to women’s decision making in the household.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Abhishek Jha is a data journalist. He analyses public data for finding news, with a focus on the environment, Indian politics and economy, and Covid-19.

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