Uttar Pradesh (UP) is one of the most densely populated states in India with high rates of poverty. The state is a major contributor to the agricultural staples of the country and, at present, a large percentage of the state’s labor force is engaged in low-productivity agricultural activities with the agricultural sector employing 60 percent of all formal workers at the state level. The purpose of this report is to present a range of options for regional development in UP by leveraging spatial development patterns along the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC). The report reflects the Government of India (GoI)-World Bank’s India country partnership strategy that promotes balanced regional growth. The report focuses on identifying potential sub regions for logistic hubs and industrial development in the UP districts and develops an economic potential index (EPI) to assess the likely impacts of investments. Using this methodology, four sub-regions have been identified for economic development, namely: (i) Auraiya-Kanpur; (ii) Ghaziabad-Gautam Buddha Nagar; (iii) Aligarh-Hathras-Firozabad-Agra; and (iv) Allahabad-Varanasi. This report is part of a three-phase examination of potential economic development along the EDFC. The report presents the results of economic modeling to determine the best locations in the state to concentrate logistics hubs, industrial estates, and infrastructure investments. The modeling approach assesses six characteristics in each district associated with variations in economic productivity, namely: (i) market accessibility; (ii) industrial diversity; (iii) commodity flow; (iv) per capita industrial investment; (v) agricultural specialization; and (vi) poor social conditions. The report has eight sections, namely: section one is introduction; section two gives overview of UP; section three presents UP’s economy and infrastructure: a synopsis; section four gives UP’s district economies and economic potential index: key factors; section five presents criteria for locating logistics and industrial hubs within promising sub-regions in UP; section six focuses on moving towards implementation; section seven gives conclusion; and section eight presents annexes.

Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, with their high concentration of population, agricultural productivity, and growing manufacturing activities are economically important for India. The construction of the corridor has the potential to increase inter-state connectivity as well as regional linkages with Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the port of Mumbai, which can in turn spur economic activity and regional integration. The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of demographic trends, human development indicators, and economic structure in the six states, as a preliminary repository of data and analysis. This report is intended to help identify detailed technical assistance, better inform policy priorities, and well-targeted investment decisions that leverage planned and ongoing infrastructure projects such as the corridor. The report is structured as follows: (1) introduction; (2) overview of the six corridor states encompassing urbanization, poverty, human development performance, and economic profiles; (3) state-level overview of demographic and economic development performance, disaggregated economic structure, and commodity movements; and (4) conclusion.

The report is organized into three chapters: chapter two looks at the pace and patterns of India's urbanization, providing a 100-year perspective on demographic shifts and a 20-year perspective on the spatial distribution of jobs across India's portfolio of settlements. The review is based on a careful, spatially detailed analysis of data from economic and demographic censuses, annual surveys of industry, national sample surveys, and special surveys of freight transport. This chapter provides diagnostics on whether Indian industry is adequately exploiting agglomeration economies and whether there are hints of specific barriers to the natural tendency of standardized industry to reshuffle from large metropolitan areas to smaller urban areas. Chapter three examines specific policy issues and investment bottlenecks that are curbing the pace and benefits of urbanization in India. The policy issues relate to land markets and housing, connectivity (within and between cities), and access to basic services. The purpose of this analysis is to unravel the specific distortions that may be preventing India from reaping the entire range of benefits of urbanization. Chapter four provides some options for policy reform, distilling lessons from relevant international experience. It provides options for establishing the 'rules of the game' that can define the workings of land and property markets as well as coordination of land use and infrastructure in cities. This chapter also provides a framework for policy makers to identify the role of regulatory and price reform in expanding infrastructure services and to make investments that enhance capacity.

Describes how city leaders can bridge the gap between readily available resources and financing needs. To start, the government can establish its creditworthiness by securing cash flows from user fees and taxes, and by leveraging the value of land. Whether financing is public or private may not matter, but private financing may be preferred if public-private partnerships are seen as a way toward greater efficiency in services or if the government cannot obtain credit. To finance investments in infrastructure, city leaders must: (1) value and develop creditworthiness, (2) coordinate public and private finances according to clear and consistent rules, and (3) leverage assets such as land to develop new assets and linking both to land use planning. Land sales and leases can generate initial capital, but in the long run, instruments such as property taxes and other levies must pay for the maintenance and expansion of public facilities.

Examines specific policy issues and investment bottlenecks that are curbing the pace and benefits of urbanization in India such as a lack of independent valuation system, stringent urban planning rules, little coordination between planned changes to land use and proposed infrastructure improvement, expensive housing, long commuting times, high freight costs, and unreliable access to basic services. A framework for sequencing and implementing land policy reform is needed to facilitate rural-urban land use conversion, reduce transaction costs, and provide a clear definition of property rights and valuation. The urban transport network has become increasingly important as the only way to connect people to jobs, but lack of integration with feeder services and high costs perpetuate the low ridership rates. Low access rates to basic services are driven by lack of coordination between jurisdictions, low tariffs that do not allow for cost recovery, and low efficiency which increases costs of provisions.

Details the steps city leaders should follow to create the connections necessary to economic growth and prosperity. Cities in which neighborhoods are disconnected, and labor and product markets are not integrated will forego productivity and face higher product prices. With limited resources, city leaders cannot invest in every opportunity to improve connections. City leaders can use a variety of approaches to valuing their internal and external connections, applying insights from economics or other fields or simply comparing their city to others in similar situations. Once constraints on internal connections have been identified, city leaders can determine what is needed for a good transport system — e.g., one that connects neighborhoods and gives people more choices about where to live and work. When deciding how and where to improve transportation networks, city leaders should identify the most efficient investments, considering where demand is highest and which corridors will produce the highest return on investment.

Suggests India's policy makers focus on priority areas to harness economic efficiency and manage spatial equity associated with urban expansion. Trends indicate the urbanization challenge will be to transform land use and expand infrastructure in the largest metropolises currently supporting 9 percent of the country's population and providing 18 percent of employment. Productivity enhancement can be achieved through investing in institutional and information foundations while deregulating the intensity of land use in urban areas. Improvements in livability will come from delivering and expanding infrastructure services allowing providers to recover costs while reaching out to poorer neighborhoods and peripheral areas. Investing in connectivity between metropolitan cores and their peripheries using network infrastructure and logistics to facilitate movement of goods and people will create better mobility. These initiatives will allow urbanized India to reap dividends from improved spatial equity and economic efficiency.

This paper evaluates how port institutional reforms influenced efficiency gains between 1991 and 2004. We constructed a panel data for port ownership, corporate structure, and port inputs and outputs for 98 major world ports, and we implemented the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) model. The MPI provides efficiency measures for input combinations that allow for obtaining the outputs in the presence of institutional reforms, ownership changes, main agent problems, technological progress, efficient scale growth, and many other reasons for efficiency and the lack of it. The results illustrate that ownership restructuring contributed to total factor productivity gains. The restructuring induced optimized operation of container terminals, especially for large ports, as it allowed specialized private entities to concentrate on terminal operation and cargo handling services.

The global seaport sector made huge efforts in relation to port reform and technological development since the 1990s. This study attempts to systematically estimate the impacts of these efforts on world ports' efficiency changes between 1991 and 2004. The Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index can effectively measure efficiency changes and identify sources of efficiency gains and losses. Based on the decomposed Malmquist Productivity Index efficiency indices, this study creates a typology of ports regarding whether, and how, they have improved their efficiency over the last decade. The results suggest that: (1) while scale efficiency, mainly representing impacts of external economic environments on port performance, is still one of the important factors to shape port efficiency, it is neither determining nor predominant any longer; (2) the globalized competition in the container shipping and terminal markets enables potential strategies to be used that combine institutional restructuring and capital investment, as a partial solution to overcome the external limitations of ports, such as lack of hinterlands; and (3) an exclusive focus on aggressive investment in technological progress is a limited strategy, as other competitor ports can relatively easily replicate the process, and, consequently, it may negate any increase in long-term competitiveness.