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New Delhi: Eight years ago, a midnight drive from Lucknow to Kanpur was a gamble with death. Toll plazas were extorted by local bahubalis ; police stations doubled as safe houses for the same men who looted the highways. In 2016, Uttar Pradesh recorded 4,94,179 cognisable offences more than 57 every hour. Communal riots erupted 67 times that year; women in western UP locked their doors by 6 pm. The state’s per capita income languished at Rs 46,000, lower than Bihar’s in real terms. Investors joked that the only “ease of doing business” was the case with which a factory could be shut down by a phone call from mafias. Today, the same stretch of road is lit by solar lamps, patrolled by women constables and flanked by upcoming industries.

Criminal Mukhtar Ansari once ran eastern UP from a jail cell in Banda. His writ extended to coal mines, railway contracts and even the price of fish in Ghazipur mandi. Atiq Ahmed controlled Prayagraj the way a feudal lord did complete with private armies and public fear. Between 2017 and 2025, the Yogi government neutralised 222 gangsters in encounters, injured 8,118 and attached properties worth Rs 1,420 crore. Conviction rates in heinous crimes rose from a mere 9.8% to 68.4%. The message under CM Yogi is clear: the state would no longer sub-contract law and order to gundas. When law and order of any state drastically improves, it naturally has an impact on its economic, investment prospects and development.

By 2024-25, nominal GSDP of UP has touched a whopping Rs 29.78 lakh crore from Rs 13.3 lakh crore, with real growth averaging 11.6%, outpacing the national 8.2%. Per capita income now stands at Rs 93,500 and is projected to cross Rs 1.24 lakh by the end of 2025. Foreign direct investment, a measly Rs 3,300 crore in the five years before 2017, surged to Rs 14,808 crore in the next few years. Today, single-window clearance resolves 97% of applications within 30 days. Samsung’s Noida plant now has neighbours Micron, HCL, and 26,900 new factories. One District One Product revived Moradabad brass, Bhadohi carpets and Firozabad glass, pushing exports from Rs 86,000 crore to Rs 2 lakh crore.

In 2017, Uttar Pradesh operated just two functional airports, and its road network was notoriously fragile major stretches routinely washed away during the first monsoon rains, disrupting connectivity and commerce across the state. Today, the transformation is striking. UP now boasts of six operational expressways, delivering high-speed, all-weather corridors that have slashed travel times and boosted economic activity. An additional 11 expressways are under construction, expanding this network further. Leading the pack is the 594-km Ganga Expressway, a flagship project that is already 71% complete and will connect Meerut to Prayagraj along the Ganga river, unlocking agricultural and industrial potential in eastern UP.

Aviation infrastructure has seen even more dramatic growth. From a mere two airports in 2017, Uttar Pradesh now has sixteen airports either operational or in advanced stages of development. The crown jewel is the Noida International Airport at Jewar, set to become Asia’s largest airport by land area and with an initial capacity to handle 12 million passengers annually. Meanwhile, Ayodhya’s Maharishi Valmiki International Airport has already begun operations, supporting religious tourism and global pilgrimage traffic. This multi-modal infrastructure surge combining expressways, greenfield airports and revived regional airstrips has repositioned Uttar Pradesh as northern India’s emerging logistics and aviation hub, driving investment, job creation and seamless connectivity. A Bundelkhand farmer who once took 12 hours to reach Lucknow now does it in three. His mangoes arrive fresh in Dubai, his daughter studies in a medical college built beside the expressway. Logistics cost, once 14% of GDP, is down to 9% and every percentage point saved is a factory gained.

While infrastructure and industrial growth is unmissable, agriculture still employs 59% of UP’s workforce and today the sector tells a different story. Foodgrain production rose from 49.9 million tonnes in 2016-17 to a sustained 56 million tonnes. Sugarcane farmers have received Rs 20 lakh crore in direct payments Rs 1.2 lakh crore more than the previous decade. Solar pumps under PM-KUSUM reached 1.2 lakh farmers; drip irrigation has covered 4 lakh hectares. Add to this the Rs 54,000 crore received by 2 crore farmers of UP as Kisan Samman Nidhi.

Since 2017, 6 crore people, nearly the population of France, have escaped multidimensional poverty in UP, the highest absolute reduction in any Indian state as per NITI Aayog, 2023. PMAY delivered 56 lakh pucca houses; 1.65 crore rural homes got free electricity connections. Ayushman Bharat cards cover 5.38 crore families. Medical colleges rose from 12 to 45; MBBS seats from 1,990 to 5,250. Today a labourer from the SC community in Bareilly, once homeless, now owns his own pucca home, sends his daughter to an English medium school without fear of her being harassed and treats his wife’s kidney ailment through Ayushman Bharat, without selling land.

Even as Uttar Pradesh erects these marvellous towers of development and growth, it hasn’t forgotten its civilisational heritage and Sanatani roots. Earlier, only one or two structures were regarded as tourism spots and were considered to be the cultural representation of entire UP. Today, Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a Sanatan revival that fuses faith, heritage and economic resurgence. The 2024 Ram Mandir consecration in Ayodhya drew 13.5 crore tourists, while Deepotsav 2025 illuminated 26 lakh diyas, clinching two Guinness records. The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor expanded from 3,000 sq ft to 5 lakh sq ft, accommodating 75,000 devotees daily and boosting tourism to Rs 1.25 lakh crore, with footfall surging. Maha Kumbh 2025 in Prayagraj, attracted an unprecedented 6.6 crore devotees, making it the world’s largest human gathering. This massive footfall, fuelled by enhanced infrastructure and global promotion, ensured it generated Rs 3 lakh crore in revenue through tourism, hospitality, transport and local trade. This transformation breathes life into local economies. A Varanasi artisan, once crippled by neglect, now crafts souvenirs for global pilgrims, thriving under the Kashi corridor’s radiance. Diyas that light up Ayodhya come from surrounding villages—from small potters, artisans belonging mostly to the Kumbhar, Prajapati samaj.

The story of UP in the last 7-8 years is not a slogan but a lived reality of a state that went from “BIMARU” to “BEMISAAL”, from “Jungle Raj” to “Janta ka Raj”. No wonder that PM Modi once famously said that UP plus Yogi is a very “Upyogi (useful)” combination.

Shehzad Poonawalla is a BJP National Spokesperson.