Photo credit: ANI
Uttar Pradesh’s Economic Survey for 2025–26 revealed that the state’s economy has grown at a CAGR of 10.8 per cent, with its GSDP rising from Rs. 13.30 lakh crore (at current price) in FY 2016–17 to Rs. 30.25 lakh crore in FY 2024–25. The state’s own tax revenue, an indicator of an economy generating activity, jumped from Rs. 0.86 lakh crore in 2016–17 to Rs. 2.09 lakh crore in 2024–25.India’s most populous state for decades carried the BIMARU label, a term coined in the 1980s to group Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh due to their low economic growth. However, UP’s share in the national economy rose from 8.6 % in 2016-17 to about 9.1 % in 2024-25.The GSDP of Uttar Pradesh for FY 2026–27 is now projected at Rs. 39.8 lakh crore, a growth of 28 per cent over the FY 2025–26 revised estimate.The growth is concentrated in the western belt around Noida and Agra, and is spreading into the Purvanchal region.In addition, the Gorakhpur Link Expressway, which is a 91.35 km corridor, inaugurated in June 2025 and, for the first time, connected Gorakhpur to the national expressway grid. In 2017, the state had three functional expressways: the Yamuna expressway and the Noida-Greater Noida expressway. It now has six operational lines, covering 1,225 km, with 2,600 km under construction.Four levers have driven the shift: investment, enterprise, governance and public finance. Meanwhile, on investment, at the Global Investor Summit of February 2023, the government received proposals of Rs 33.5 lakh crore.On the enterprise, state exports have grown from Rs. 84,000 crore in 2017 to Rs. 1.86 lakh crore. Uttar Pradesh is the only state in the country where exports are being made from all 75 districts, with district-specific products, with the highest exports is Gautam Buddha Nagar, from where exports worth Rs. 94.3 thousand crore were made in 2024 25, accounting for 50.7 percent of the state’s total exports.Meanwhile, UP has also grown in terms of governance. As per the State Startup Ecosystem Ranking (5th edition) published by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in January 2026, Uttar Pradesh was included in the Top Performer Category ‘A-1’. On public finance, tax revenues have more than doubled in eight years.
