Eight firms submit bids for consultant to chart UP’s $1 trillion economy roadmap

A top management institute is among eight bidders that have submitted their proposals to the Uttar Pradesh government for selection as the consultant to perform the ‘herculean task’ of working out a roadmap to boost the state’s gross domestic product (GSDP) to one trillion dollars in the next five years.

“The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is one among the eight bidders for the consultant and the state government will soon decide the date and time for technical presentation, evaluation and opening of financial bids,” confirmed a senior officer.

With most agreeing that working out a roadmap to boost the size of GSDP to one trillion dollars is a challenging one, especially in view of the impact of Covid-19 on the state’s economy, the response to the state government’s request for proposal (RFP) is being considered encouraging.

“The consultant will face a great challenge to suggest an out of the box idea for a roadmap to boost the size of GSDP to one trillion dollars. It looks like an aspirational goal rather than an achievable target. It will need a growth rate of nearly 45% per annum,” said Yashvir Tyagi, retired professor of economics, Lucknow University.

The RFP document asks the consultant to design ‘monthly, quarterly and annual key performance indicators, how to measure them, and who should measure them and its online reporting mechanism’. It also asked the consultant to ‘make critical assessment (e.g. SWOT analysis) of existing institutional framework in the state to participate in the entire process towards achieving the mission…’

It further asked the consultant to ‘develop strategic framework based on status and recent trends, determine multipliers between sectoral growth and impact on GSDP and assign targets and how to achieve them for each sector towards one trillion (dollar) economy’.

The state government has already made it clear to the bidders that the work to boost the size of the state’s GSDP to one trillion dollars will be a herculean task.

About the state’s economy, the RFP said, “The state has already embarked upon the journey of growth and prosperity. Resultantly, in 2018-19, GSDP has already touched ₹15.80 lakh crore ($230 billion) with a rich growth rate of 7% over the previous year. However, it would be a challenging task to boost the size of the GSDP by nearly five times to reach the target of one trillion dollars in five years (2020-2025), discounting for dollar fluctuations and global trends.”