A Profile and Diagnostic of Poverty in Uttar Pradesh

Rich in potential – in human and natural assets – Uttar Pradesh once appeared to be a pacesetter for the country’s economic and social development. It is the most populous state in India – home to more than 160 million people spread across 112,000 villages and towns -as well as one of the poorest. Most of the state’s farm land is in the well-watered and naturally fertile Indo-Gangetic Plain, and the Western Region’s tradition of raising wheat and sugarcane made it a strong platform for the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, which helped UP depart from previously low levels of agricultural growth. In the next decade, the Eastern and Central Regions of the state registered strong advances, spurred by purposeful investments in research, extension, irrigation and marketing infrastructure. As a result, in the 1970s, economic growth in most sectors in Uttar Pradesh was higher than that in the rest of India. Since then, however, economic growth started to fall behind that of India, particularly in the 1990s—UP has been slow to seize the opportunities created by the liberalization of the economy started in 1991.