A Case For Splitting Uttar Pradesh Into Smaller States

The legitimacy for starting consultations on dividing the state of UP already exists. Here is the economic rationale.

The BJP’s Election Manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, in a section under “Strengthen the Framework”, emphasizes the party’s recognition of regional aspirations and builds a case for greater decentralization through smaller states. The “smaller states for better administration” argument is not new and has been in several of the BJP’s earlier manifestos and it needs no repeating about the role of NDA-I in creating the states of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhatssigarh.

With Uttar Pradesh going to polls in 2017, the question in many people’s minds is if the BJP would push for the division of a state as a poll promise, go to the polls with multiple CM candidates and divide the state into smaller states if elected to power. While it is the Centre’s sole prerogative to decide the contours of division or alteration of state boundaries, the state assemblies provide an impetus for the Centre to start the process of consultation for any such division.

In the Winter Session of the UP Assembly in 2011, Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati passed a resolution for the division of UP into four smaller states: Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Paschim Pradesh (also referred to as Harit Pradesh). In a way, the legitimacy for starting consultations on dividing the state of UP thus already exists. Leaving the politics aside, the splitting of Uttar Pradesh into multiple states needs to be looked upon from a geographical as well as an economic angle to analyse cultural cohesiveness and economic viability.

Cultures and Regions in Uttar Pradesh

The 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh can be culturally divided into 8 regions. These regions are the 25 districts in Upper Doab, Middle Doab and Rohilkhand that constitute Western Uttar Pradesh, the 25 districts of Awadh and Lower Doab that form a part of Central Uttar Pradesh, the 18 districts of Purvanchal that makes up Eastern Uttar Pradesh and the 7 districts of the difficult terrains of Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand that would be a part of Southern Uttar Pradesh.

The idea of splitting UP into smaller administrative units is not a Mayawati original. In 1955, Ambedkar in his book “Thoughts On Linguistic States”, proposed the idea of UP being split into three states with the Western Region having Meerut as its capital, the Eastern Region having Allahabad at its capital and the Central region with Kanpur as its Capital. Thus, the four states of UP as envisaged by Mayawati in the 2012 Assembly resolution when mapped to the eight cultural regions and Ambedkar’s capitals would have the following number of districts:

Such an arrangement would mean that Allahabad District of Lower Doab region would be a part of Purvanchal. The region of Bundelkhand would contain the six districts of Bundelkhand and the district of Chitrakoot of the Baghelkhand region.

These districts share a lot of common traits with the Northern districts of Madhya Pradesh and it is important that the Centre considers altering the boundaries of Madhya Pradhesh in tandem while providing for a larger Bundelkhand state.

However, the rest of the states of Awadh, Pashchimanchal and Purvanchal could be geographically split as significant cultural cohesiveness exists within these entities.

Economic Viability

The report by the Committee for Consultations on the Situation in Andhra Pradesh, headed by retired Justice B.N Srikrishna in its report in December 2010 looked at economic viability as an important factor while assessing the division of (the erstwhile undivided) Andhra Pradesh. The Committee used the Per capita District Domestic Product (District Domestic Product Divided by District Population) as an important parameter to examine the Economic Profile of the regions.

As latest economic data for districts is not available, the data for 2012-2013 (sourced from UP state’s Directorate of Economics and Statistics) has been used to look at the Economic profile of various districts and the states envisaged. The GDP of the regions has been arrived at after aggregating the District Domestic product of the districts that constitute these regions. The Per Capita GDP can be derived once the Regional GDP is divided by the population of that region and is depicted below for the eight regions of Uttar Pradesh-

The region-wise GDP, population and per capita GDP is listed below:

While the regions of Bundelkhand and Pashchimanchal have per capita GDPs above the State average, Awadh is a little below the current state average while Purvanchal as a region is a clear laggard bringing down the per capita GDP of the state of Uttar Pradesh. This region bordering Bihar would thus need special focus and attention if a separate state were to be formed.

Comparing the new UP states with the rest of India

Currently, UP is one of the economically backward states if one were to rank states on a GDP Per capita basis. The top 5 and bottom 5 states of India ranked on a GDP per capita basis using 2012-2013 data would look like this:

A divided UP would rank all the states created from it at the bottom of the pool but would now hold their respective CMs and Governments responsible for taking the big leap forward:

Setting up of a State Reorganization Committee

Administrative reform through decentralization and creation of smaller states would further help bring in accountability of the political establishment to its citizens. In 1955, Ambedkar on splitting UP into 3 states had said “Each of these three States should have a population of approximately two crores which should be regarded as the standard size of population for a State to administer effectively”.

With Technology and better governance tools, this could well be 6 crores in today’s world. The Government should consider setting up a State Reorganization Committee specifically tasked at the division of Uttar Pradesh into smaller states while also considering the alteration of the boundaries of Madhya Pradesh to create a separate Bundelkhand.

(Venkat Goli is the founder of Yudofud, a Public Strategy firm. He can be reached at @kanesh_goli on Twitter)