Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government has come out with a revised Request for Proposal (RFP) for selection of a consultant to accomplish the ‘Herculean task’ of boosting the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) to $1 trillion in the next five years.
“The task demands some giant steps. It needs some well-thought-out and long-term strategies on a sustained basis. This would also require organisational restructuring, focused policies and rules for more effective governance, faster decision-making process and improved accountability,” read the RFP document while spelling out the task to the to-be-consultant. A new timeline, given along with the revised RFP, asks bidders to submit their e-bids by October 9. The e-bids will be opened by October 12 and the selected consultant will, thereafter, be required to submit a report in 90 days, outlining a roadmap to make UP a trillion-dollar economy.
“Changes have been made in the revised RFP. Some changes have been made in evaluation criteria, while 30-day time, instead of 21 days, has been allowed for submission of bids. Earnest money deposit can be made by RTGS now,” said a functionary of the state planning department.
Giving the background about the state’s economy, the RFP stated, “The state has already embarked upon the journey of growth and prosperity. Resultantly, in 2018-19, the GSDP has already touched Rs 15.80 lakh crore ($230 billion) with a rich growth rate of 7 percent 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 $1 trillion in five years (2020-2025), discounting for dollar fluctuations and global trends. It enhances the challenge and would require sustained and aggressive efforts at the state level.”
As the state has not been able to witness a double-digit growth despite consistent attempts, making the state a trillion-dollar economy would prove to be a major challenge. “The state government has set an ambitious target of making UP a trillion-dollar economy. The RFP itself calls the move a herculean task. So, the government will have to make ‘Bhagirath’ (gigantic) efforts as the Covid-19 is bound to lead to contraction of the GSDP in 2020-2021. The government will effectively have four-and-a-half years to complete the task. Advance estimates for 2019-2020 indicate the GSDP of about Rs 17.94 lakh crore. After contracting of the GSDP in 2020-2021, the state will need a growth rate of about 45 percent per annum at current prices in the next four years,” said Yashvir Tyagi, former professor, economics department, Lucknow University. “UP’s ability to attract investment proposals worth Rs 4.68 lakh crore in the Investors Summit in 201
Source: https://www.nyoooz.com/news/lucknow/1513821/1-trillion-dollar-economy-herculean-task-up-govt-tells-tobeconsultant-in-revised-rfp/