Uttar Pradesh, the third-largest state economy of the country, is now heading towards a revamp across sectors. Apart from focusing on tourism, one of the strongest revenue-generators, the direction is now being shifted to different aspects of social development, while infrastructure projects are being accelerated alongside to align with its goals.

However, law and order have always been a concern with the state and Uttar Pradesh has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Reports on Unnao MLA sexually assaulting a 17-year-old, high infant mortality rate and scams in mining and employee provident fund have shadowed the progress of the state.

Often the ground reality can entirely vary from what is being portrayed in the media.

The SKOCH State of Governance study 2019 indicates vast improvement in the overall governance. From grappling with socio-economic issues to now climbing up the growth charts, Uttar Pradesh is a success story of how a state can bounce back from deep-rooted, social issues. The state ranked 11th this year and that is a rise in the position from last year’s (when it ranked 12th). Streamlined urban planning doubled with the government’s fast-implementing strategies, the state is now transforming from an old, heritage centre to a modern, technology-driven environment.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is behind accelerating change with several policy reforms and wooing investors. During the investor’s summit in 2018 in Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath said, “Uttar Pradesh is the growth engine of India. The investor-friendly policy direction of my government and the good governance initiatives, complementing the inherent strengths of the state, will definitely go a long way in transforming the state into a preferred investment destination,” the Chief Minister said.

A closer look at the state-level projects and the changes catalysed will provide insight into how Uttar Pradesh has tread along the development plank.

Introducing quality assessments in hospital labs

Use of external quality assessment [EQA] helps to identify problems in laboratory practices, allowing for appropriate corrective action. EQA participation evaluates the reliability of methods and equipment. Till now, there was no quality monitoring system in place for laboratories in the public health facilities of Uttar Pradesh. This resulted in a lack of data on the quality of lab services leading to a certain level of reliability issues among the service providers. The EQA has resulted in definitive improvement in the quality of pathological and biochemical diagnostic tests and hence improved patient safety.

In public health-related testing, EQA comes into the picture to assure that results from various laboratories during surveillance and supervision could be compared.

Successful in keeping Bharat Swachh

While the entire country is rallying for cleanliness and public hygiene, the karmacharis from Uttar Pradesh have gone the extra mile to do their duties. As per the report provided by the Health Department, the total number of cases of diarrhoea were 2,744 in 2015, which came down to 171 in 2018. Similarly, the total number of cases of Hepatitis has decreased from 148 in 2015 to 0.

E-governance takes over

Nivesh Mitra is a web-based online facility for entrepreneurs setting up an enterprise in the state. Entrepreneurs can get online clearances/NOC from the department concerned with ease. The platform allows investors and businesses across its 75 districts to access the platform. It is the largest single window portal in India and provides licenses for 112 services across 20 major departments. In a record time of about one year, about 38,000 NOC/approvals have been issued via the portal.

This has been a pioneering step towards digital governance and will boost the Start-Up India mission.

Conserving water resources

With alarms of climate change fast-spreading and water crisis intensifying by the day, project Son Jal is being implemented in the Sonbhadra district for the public benefit and is an effort to awaken the public towards preserving water. During summer, 505 slums of 150 villages are affected due to water shortage.

According to data, Sonbhadra implemented taankas in around 200 villages to harvest water and it was able to save around 100 million litres of water. It targets 4,000 taankas where presently the work is being done on 800 taankas. Currently, the progress data of the initiative reports a total of 3,195 ponds being created, 379 bandhis and 1,785 dug wells.

Uttar Pradesh is changing its own narrative from a pilgrimage state to an innovation-driven state. It has been focusing not only on infrastructure, and trade and commerce but has been working greatly towards attaining socio-economic progress as well. Uttar Pradesh remains one of the largest drivers of India’s GDP.