After Modi's $5 trillion vision, Yogi targets $1 trillion GSDP for UP

CM Adityanath exhorts UP's biz community, traders for helping achieve the target

In the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Indian economy hitting the $ 5-trillion mark by 2024, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has exhorted traders and businessmen to contribute towards the state becoming a trillion dollar economy.

While chairing a meeting of newly-constituted UP Vyapari Kalyan Board (Traders’ Welfare Board) in Lucknow on Monday, the CM – while referring to Modi’s aim of India becoming a $5 trillion economy, urged the business community to rise up to the occasion and contribute wholeheartedly towards UP becoming a 1$ trillion economy by 2024.

On February 21, 2018, Modi had called upon UP and Maharashtra to compete for emerging as the country’s first $1-trillion economy and exuded confidence that UP would certainly achieve the target.  

According to the UP Budget 2019-20 tabled in the state legislature in February 2019, UP’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is estimated to touch Rs 15.80 trillion (or nearly $230 billion at current exchange rate) by the end of this financial year.

Adityanath asserted that the government was committed to resolving genuine issues faced by traders, and was creating a conducive ‘doing business’ environment even as he claimed that positive results had already started to emerge.

The 11-member Board was constituted by UP to act as an interface between the government and traders with the mandate of looking into aspects of safety and welfare of the business community and facilitating speedy resolution of grievances. It also aims at resolving tax-related disputes faced by traders and to take their suggestions for fine-tuning related policies.

The CM mentioned the government had created a robust infrastructure for the filing of online complaints by traders to curb corruption and harassment of businessmen. He also directed officials to install CCTV cameras in markets and shopping areas to control incidents of loot and mugging. He stressed on the need to use modern technology in crime control in the state, which would also boost business confidence and economic activities.

Meanwhile, Adityanath advised the Board to tour different parts of the state to meet traders and get their feedback on the work being done by the government. He said the state would soon come out with a policy for regularising street vendors through registration and will provide them with the traders’ pension benefits.

Visiting his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi on Saturday, Modi had hit out at critics for doubting the achievability of his $5 trillion economy dream, terming such people as “professional pessimists,” who only excelled in berating others rather them offering solutions and raising the bar.

Noting he was no economist himself, the PM said it was imperative for the ruling BJP leaders and workers to understand the premise of his $5 trillion vision and its contours. This was Modi’s second visit to Varanasi after winning 2019 Lok Sabha polls.