Lucknow
The Yogi Adityanath 2.0 government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has relaxed the bidding deadline for global consultants to prepare a blueprint to develop the landlocked state as a trillion-dollar economy by 2027.
Earlier, the e-bids were mandated to be submitted by April 29. However, the deadline has now been relaxed to May 24, according to a senior UP government official.
The decision to extend the bidding deadline was taken in the light of a slew of suggestions and concerns emanating at the recent pre-bid meeting for the global e-bid process.
Consequently, the government decided to incorporate these valuable inputs in the bidding document to make it more encompassing to achieve the desired objectives of the global process.
The state planning department is the nodal agency for conducting the e-bidding process for the selection of a consultant to prepare the trillion-dollar blueprint.
Meanwhile, the department has already started working on the revised bidding document and an amended document would soon be uploaded for the prospective bidders.
Besides, the UP government is currently in the process of fine-tuning its different departments and organs, as well as preparing the 100-day roadmap for holistic socio-economic development of the state. This is another reason that the bidding process was plausibly postponed.
Currently, the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of UP is to the tune of US$ 230 billion, and to hit the ambitious target of a trillion-dollar economy by 2027 would mean a more than a four-fold expansion of the state’s economy, which is a herculean task, economist and social scientist Prof. AP Tiwari said.
Moreover, the UP government is keen to align its trillion-dollar dream with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of making India a $5trn economy in near future.
Earlier, Modi had himself challenged UP and Maharashtra to compete as to which of the two states achieved the feat of becoming the first trillion-dollar state economy in India.
Meanwhile, the request for proposal (RfP) document had mentioned that UP is the most populous state and plays a critical role for India to become a $5trn economy since the state contributes 8 percent of India’s GDP.
“This herculean task demands some giant steps to be taken by the state government to move forward. It needs some well-thought-out and long-term strategies on a sustained basis. This would also require organizational restructuring, focused policies and rules for more effective governance, faster decision-making process and improved accountability,” the RfP added.