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Long-established industrial centres such as Kanpur, Moradabad, Bhadohi and Firozabad are currently facing severe disruptions due to the imposition of steep US tariffs. A tariff increase of up to 50% has sharply reduced demand for many products exported from these regions. This contraction in the export market has led to widespread job losses, particularly among temporary and contractual workers, pushing thousands of families into vulnerability.

According to The Hindu (10 November), export associations and factory owners estimate job losses at around 25% in the initial phase alone. UP has a wide network of industrial towns—Agra, Modinagar, Aligarh, Kanauj, Jaunpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Etawah, Mirzapur, Bareilly, Saharanpur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Jhansi and others—but Kanpur remains the largest industrial city.

The report quoted Gaurav Singh, an export council member and glass manufacturer in Firozabad, saying that US orders had declined by 35–50% since the tariff hike. An estimated 8,000–10,000 workers, including many women artisans, have been affected. Similarly, Bhadohi and Mirzapur—India’s main handmade carpet clusters, responsible for over 60% of the country’s ₹17,000 crore carpet exports—have reportedly suffered around a 30% decline, as the US previously accounted for 58.6% of their total exports.

Kanpur’s leather industry, which relies on foreign markets for nearly 20% of its exports, is also facing downsizing. The situation is alarming because the MSME sector produces 60% of UP’s industrial output and employs roughly 90 lakh workers. The opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) has demanded urgent government intervention through liquidity support, wage protection and expanded market access to prevent a temporary economic shock from turning into a prolonged humanitarian and industrial crisis.

What UP Needs

Despite being India’s most politically significant state—once represented by 120 MPs in both Houses of Parliament—Uttar Pradesh continues to be categorised as a BIMARU state. The state has consistently failed to prevent the erosion of its traditional industrial foundations. Even institutions like IIT Kanpur have gradually lost their earlier prominence, mirroring the decline of Kanpur as a strong industrial hub.

Economist Vikas Kumar of Azim Premji University argued in The Print (7 August 2021) that UP’s enormous size is itself a barrier to effective economic governance. He suggests that splitting the state into smaller states could enable more targeted policymaking, localised experimentation and healthy inter-state competition—factors that have historically driven economic and social progress. According to him, the “one-size-fits-all” approach administered from Lucknow is a major weakness in the state’s development strategy.

The One-Trillion-Dollar Question

At the last Industrial Summit, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that UP would become a one-trillion-dollar economy within the next five years. However, he did not explain how this would be achieved. Experts point out that to reach this target, UP’s economy would need to grow at about 30% per year for five consecutive years—an extraordinarily high and unprecedented growth rate.

This raises questions about the realism of the target and the seriousness of the state government’s approach to economic planning and industrial revival.