It has the population of Germany, France and UK combined, is roughly half the size of Spain, but has poverty levels that could bracket it with any sub-Saharan African nation. Whenever it makes it to national frontpages, it is almost always for caste violence, communal tension, or as we saw last month, the barbaric lynching of a 58-year-old man by a mob accusing him of cow slaughter. But Akhilesh Yadav’s Uttar Pradesh (UP) still believes it has what it takes to be the next Asian miracle.That dream — and the 42-year-old chief minister’s claims — might elicit a patronising smile from the bulge-bracket crowd of Mumbai and New Delhi, but look closer, UP has a lot going for itself. The compound annual growth rate of Uttar Pradesh in the last three years has been higher than the national growth rate. As per the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, UP figures in the Top 10 list ahead of Haryana (ranked 14th) and Delhi (15). It still hogs the limelight for sensational crimes like the Dadri lynching, but the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says it is the third safest state in the country to live. And for those inclined to trivia, UP rakes in more tourism moolah than even the vacationer’s paradise Goa.Well aware that he has got to do some heavy lifting in brand building, Yadav has been organising investment meets — besides getting a toehold in mega events like Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas — ever since he took over. “Do not judge Uttar Pradesh from news reports — experience it,” he told a crowd in Hotel Trident, Mumbai, with honchos of Reliance Industries , Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Aditya Birla Group, RP Goenka Group, the Tatas and Adani Group in attendance. The event called the UP Investors’ Conclave held in mid-September was preceded by similar ones in Agra and New Delhi.UP government claims deals worth more than Rs 54,000 crore were signed at the Mumbai conclave in sectors such as infrastructure, food and agro-processing, manufacturing, telecom and dairy, which are expected to create 1.50 lakh jobs. According to state government estimates, since the beginning of the current term, April 2012, industrialists have committed investments worth Rs 85,524 crore.Swedish home furnishing company Ikea is the latest to join the bandwagon: it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UP government on September 24 to set up three stores in the state at Lucknow, Agra and Noida, each with an investment of Rs 500 crore.An organisation called Udyog Bandhu that works as a facilitator between the government and the industrialists sets specific deadlines for approvals such as green clearance, electricity connection, no-objection certificate, etc. Any delay is dealt with punitive action, claim state government officials. Well, not everyone is impressed. Ask Laxmikant Bajpai, the former state minister and BJP state president, who believes it is all an expensive put-on. “Where are those industries? It is more noise than work. The only two big projects on which they are working are the Metro Rail and the [Lucknow-Agra] Expressway,” he told ET Magazine.Gaurav Taneja of Ernst & Young says UP deserves a chance, and it might yet surprise the nay-sayers. Well, E&Y happens to be a consultant to the Yadav government, and Taneja underlines his hope with the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report. “For a state as big and as diverse as Uttar Pradesh, being ranked at 10 ahead of Haryana and Delhi is not a bad start,” he says. “From our first-hand experience, we know that the bureaucracy is now forthcoming, the state functionaries are receptive to ideas, and a majority of projects are doing well,” Taneja tells ET Magazine.It is 8:00 pm on a Wednesday. The venue: the CM’s official residence at 5, Kalidas Marg, Lucknow. We are waiting as the chief minister’s powerpoint meet with ITC executives drags long. After the meeting, Yadav — also the state’s home minister, finance minister and law minister — clears a few files, orders green tea, and then talks shop.“When the Samajwadi Party came back to power [in 2012], our first priority was to deliver on all the promises we made at the time of the elections. I can vouch that we have delivered on them all. In a year or two, people will see the rising phase of the state,” says the youngest chief minister of UP.BJP’s Bajpai rubbishes that claim. “This state is largely agrarian. When we talk about development, building five-star hotels , hospitals like Fortis and Medanta and institutions like Amity will not serve the common man. The government promised 22-hour electricity in villages and 24-hour supply in cities — the reality is that 24-hour power supply is available only in their [SP bigwigs’] home turfs of Azamgarh, Etawah, Etah, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Firozabad and Badaun,” he says.SP’s principal Opposition in the state, Bahujan Samajwadi Party, too pooh-poohs Yadav’s claims. “Kehne mein kya hai [It takes nothing to promise]. Even I can say that I will build a bridge up in the air and reduce the distance from Lucknow to Delhi from 500 km to 100 km,” says Brajesh Pathak , a BSP MP from Rajya Sabha.Listing the failures of Yadav, Pathak points to the much-touted free laptop scheme, which he says the government shelved for reasons best known to them. “As far as the farmers are concerned, the tube wells have no power, tanks are dry and a pack of DAP [diammonium phosphate] that was earlier selling for Rs 700 is now available for Rs 1,400. SP talks about Investor Forum and IT plans — investment is secondary, what is more important is bijli-sadak-makan apart from law and order,” he tells ET Magazine.Team Akhilesh accepts some of these criticisms but argues that to grow out of the agriculture conundrum, it is important to look ahead and think different.Rapid urbanisation, aided and abetted by IT and infrastructure growth, is the answer to the woes of state’s farmers, they say, reasoning that the future has to be imagined, not just arrived at.And in good faith, they point to the project pipeline. Consider these: A cycle track for the health-conscious, a forthcoming football stadium curated by Brazilian soccer legend Roberto Carlos, a cricket stadium with six ready pitches for Ranji Trophy, to start with, an IT City being developed by HCL, the Lucknow-Agra Expressway — the longest access-controlled expressway in the country, when completed, which will connect major cities — and six Metro projects coming up in six cities.These are some of the initiative taken by the UP government in the last two and a half years. If Lucknow Metro is expected to get completed by end-2016, the Lucknow-Agra Expressway is expected to be completed well before its deadline in October 2016, says the CM.Badri Narayan Tiwari, professor of social history at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, says UP has the potential to do much better, but nothing should come at the cost of the social sector. “While there’s some buzz around the upcoming IT City and Metro Rail, the social sectors seems to have been missed out,” he feels. More than twothirds of the state’s population is dependent on agriculture while manufacturing and industry contribute only 12 per cent and nine per cent, respectively, to the state GDP.“These steps are more lights than show; the needs of a large part of the state are pretty basic. The state ought to focus more on the health and education sectors,” says Deen Bandhu Tiwari, professor at LBS PG College, Mughal Sarai.The Samajwadi Party, which has its roots in the socialist Ram Manohar Lohia’s model of development, has also a few social schemes up its sleeve. Not only has it distributed 15 lakh laptops free to the meritorious students, the UP government has declared the year 2015 as the year of upgrading education quality. Often called the bread basket of the country, the state has already set up agro parks over 180 acres in Lucknow and Varanasi. Similarly, Amul is setting up plants in Lucknow, Kanpur and Saifai at a cost of Rs 600 crore.Recently, the state also made headlines when it advertised that it has emerged as a hotspot for tourism, and is ahead of places like Goa in revenue from tourists. From the Buddha Circuit, which stretches from Sarnath to Kushinagar, to the Lion Safari at Etawah and the holy and oldest city of Varanasi, with adjoining falls like Raj Dari and Dev Dari, UP has it all, including the Taj Mahal, Mathura & Vrindavan, Dudhwa National Park and Lucknow’s Imambara. But is the state doing enough?Yadav says time is of essence here. “I believe in speed — like someone said, if you can double the speed, you can triple the investment,” he tells ET Magazine. That “speed” appears to be the buzzword for the government.“The Lucknow-Agra Expressway will be completed in record time. Lucknow Metro will be faster than Delhi’s,” Yadav adds. The state government also claims that a new power connection is given in just 15 days.Team Akhilesh also points to a World Bank report that shows that investors can get clearance for their projects in Noida in 30 days, the fastest in the country, while consumer grievances are heard every 15 days by a principle-secretary level officer; disposal of cases too is faster than yesteryears.But all those claims and dreams could come unstuck if there is no palpable improvement in the law and order situation. “Even the chief minister accepted in the Vidhan Sabha that there have been 611 cases where policemen were beaten up [allegedly by SP workers]. If even the police are not safe, how can the common man feel safe and who will come to invest here?” asks BJP’s Bajpai.Improving the law and order situation — and making the investment community feel that change — remains the biggest challenge for the CM even as he goes around wooing moneybags.Not surprisingly, a safe UP is what the CM and his party could bank on as it approaches 2017 when the state goes to polls. BJP, which swept the state in the general elections, is already at work to return to this allimportant state, and their main plank is “lawlessness” under the SP regime.Veteran SP leader Azam Khan says the assembly elections will be fought on the plank of development by the party. “All the election promise that we made in the manifesto have been met,” he says.Kaushal Kishore Mishra, a professor of political science at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, feels that the youth of today can’t be fooled by giving a laptop or “any other jhunjhuna [toy]”. “While showing the success of one expressway, Akhilesh Yadav may be able to get a few more votes, but what about 15-crore masses that reside in the villages and live on the edge; for them, it all boils down to the roads that connect their villages to the towns and cities. Unfortunately, not much has changed on that front. To be relevant in 2017, rather than resorting to ad hoc moves, Akhilesh must take more stable measures, and he must do it fast — 2017 is not far,” he says.Gurcharan Das, a political commentator, says that there are wonderful people from the state but they have been badly let down by the state. “I have mixed feelings for the state. It is a big state and hence ungovernable.”Cut to Ruskin Bond, to make sense of what Das is hinting at: the sheer enormity of Uttar Pradesh that makes the challenges complicated. He wrote this in 1967: “I have been to other countries — in Europe, Asia and the Middle East — but none of them provided even half as much variety, or so much to see and experience and remember, as this one state in northern India. Uttar Pradesh is a world in itself.”Yadav would agree. Just that he would want new, better things to recall when anyone thinks UP.