Uttarakhand, Formed on 9 November 2000, Had a Per Capita GSDP of Rs 2,96,012 in 2024-25, About 26 Per Cent Above India's Figure, and Sends 5 Members to the Lok Sabha and 3 to the Rajya Sabha

Uttarakhand’s per capita GSDP (gross state domestic product, the value of goods and services a state produces divided by its population) was Rs 2,96,012 in 2024-25, PRS Legislative Research reports in its analysis of the state budget. India’s per capita GDP was Rs 2,34,859 that year, which makes the state’s figure about 26 per cent higher by tuput’s arithmetic. The state was formed on 9 November 2000 and sends 5 members to the Lok Sabha and 3 to the Rajya Sabha. Census figures below are from 2011, because the count that will replace them is still under way.

How a hill region of Uttar Pradesh became a state

The Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 (Act 29 of 2000) created the state with effect from 9 November 2000, according to the footnotes in the Legislative Department’s edition of the Constitution. It was first called Uttaranchal. The Uttaranchal (Alteration of Name) Act, 2006 changed the name to Uttarakhand from 1 January 2007, and the First Schedule lists it that way. The 2011 Census tables show 13 districts, among them Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital, Chamoli and Pithoragarh.

Dehradun was made the interim capital at formation, a youth-wing leader of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal, a regional party, told The Tribune in August 2015 while demanding Gairsain as the permanent one. A commission under V. N. Dixit assessed five places (Dehradun, Gairsain, Rishikesh, Kashipur and Ramnagar), recommended Dehradun and rejected Gairsain as earthquake-prone, The Quint reported, and its 250-page report went to the government in 2008. On 8 June 2020 a state notification, signed by the Chief Secretary after the Governor’s approval, declared “Bhararisen (Gairsen) district Chamoli as the Summer Capital”. The Quint called the permanent-capital question contentious since 2000.

How the state is governed

Uttarakhand’s legislature has one House. Article 168 names the states that have two, and Uttarakhand is not among them. The Legislative Assembly has 70 seats, 13 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 2 for Scheduled Tribes under the Delimitation Order of 2008, according to the Election Commission’s press note for the 2022 elections. The roll behind that note listed 82,38,187 electors. Under Article 172(1) an Assembly lasts five years, and the one before the 2022 election ran from 24 March 2017 to 23 March 2022.

In Parliament the state holds 5 Lok Sabha seats, one of them reserved for Scheduled Castes since the 2008 delimitation, a Ministry of External Affairs table shows, and 3 Rajya Sabha seats under the Fourth Schedule. How those numbers are fixed is covered in our explainer on sharing Lok Sabha seats among states.

The High Court sits at Nainital, a hill town in Kumaon, its website says. Part IV of the 2000 Act provided for it, it became the country’s 18th High Court, and its sanctioned strength rose from 7 judges at creation to 11.

Under the Uttarakhand Official Language Act, 2009 (Act 14 of 2010), which the Governor assented to on 7 January 2010 according to the Hindi Gazette notice, Hindi in the Devanagari script is the language of ordinances, government orders and rules. Sanskrit is the second official language for such purposes as the government notifies. The Act repealed the Uttar Pradesh Official Language Act, 1951 for Uttarakhand.

A civil code in force since January 2025

The Uniform Civil Code, Uttarakhand, 2024 (Act 3 of 2024) states its aim as “to govern and regulate the laws relating to marriage and divorce, succession, live-in relationships, and matters related thereto”. The Gazette of 12 March 2024 records the President’s assent on 11 March 2024. Article 44 says the State “shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”, and our piece on personal laws sets out the national debate.

The Act extends to the whole state and to residents living outside it. Section 2 excludes members of Scheduled Tribes and people whose customary rights are protected under Part XXI of the Constitution. Section 4 requires that the man has completed 21 years and the woman 18, and section 5 allows marriage under religious or customary rites, naming Saptapadi, Ashirvad, Nikah, Holy Union and Anand Karaj. Section 6 makes registration compulsory where at least one party lives in the state. PTI reported when the Bill was tabled on 6 February 2024 that live-in relationships must be registered too.

All India Radio News reported that the Code was enforced on 27 January 2025 and that an ordinance promulgated by the Governor under Article 213 in January 2026 made procedural and penal changes, including alignment with the new criminal laws. The state government, as the broadcaster reports it, says its aims are women’s empowerment, children’s rights and equality in civil rights, and that nearly all marriage registrations are now online, with certificates issued in an average of five days.

Petitioners dispute it. On 12 February 2025 a Division Bench headed by the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court issued notice to the state and the Union on petitions that, LiveLaw reported, cite Articles 14, 19, 21 and 25, argue that a state law cannot reach residents outside the state under Article 245, and say compulsory registration of live-in relationships infringes privacy. No judgment appears in the sources checked.

What the economy earns and what the budget plans

PRS puts the 2024-25 GSDP at Rs 3,47,981 crore at current prices. Real growth, adjusted for inflation, was 6.4 per cent against 6.5 per cent for India. Agriculture, manufacturing and services contributed 10, 41 and 49 per cent. Per capita GSDP rose 9.8 per cent on the year, while India’s rose 9 per cent.

The budget for 2026-27, presented on 9 March 2026, projects GSDP at Rs 4,27,716 crore, up 12 per cent. Spending, excluding debt repayment, is Rs 83,543 crore, and capital outlay (money spent on assets such as roads and buildings) is Rs 18,153 crore, up 22 per cent. The state expects a revenue surplus of Rs 2,536 crore, 0.6 per cent of GSDP, and a fiscal deficit of 3.7 per cent (Rs 15,989 crore). PRS notes that the 16th Finance Commission recommended a 3 per cent limit for 2026 to 2031, with 50-year interest-free central capital loans left out of the borrowing ceiling. Outstanding liabilities are put at 28.5 per cent of GSDP at the end of 2026-27.

Of Rs 67,526 crore in revenue receipts, 47 per cent comes from the state’s own taxes and other income and 53 per cent from the Centre, as its share of central taxes (26 per cent) and grants (27 per cent). PRS also records that 66,317 of 2.39 lakh sanctioned government posts, 28 per cent, were vacant in March 2025.

What sets Uttarakhand apart

The census table on the Chief Minister’s office website gives a population of 1,00,86,292 in 2011, 51,37,773 men and 49,48,519 women. Haridwar, Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital together held 61,90,623 of them, the figure ETV Bharat gives for the state’s four plains districts and about 61 per cent by tuput’s arithmetic. The same table shows more women than men in seven of the other nine districts, and in Haridwar 10,05,295 men to 8,85,127 women.

That split shapes the Assembly. Article 170 says each seat should hold about the same population, and until figures from the first census after 2026 are published it measures population by the 2001 census. ETV Bharat counts 31 of the 70 seats in the hill districts and 39 in the plains, and reports that the calculation gave the hills 10 per cent relief on population. An activist, Ram Lal, told the outlet that delimitation should rest on geography, and a former panchayat representative, Jot Singh Bisht, said cuts in mountain seats disturb the region’s economic balance. Under Article 170(3) the next readjustment waits for published figures from the first census after 2026, which Census 2027 will be.

The Constitution also names the state in a place few readers would look. Article 279A(4)(g) lists Uttarakhand with ten other states and Union Territories for which the GST Council may recommend special provisions, a subject our GST explainer covers.

Chipko’s best-known protest took place in the state. On 26 March 1974, as The Tribune records it, women of Reni village in Chamoli district, led by Gaura Devi, confronted the men sent to fell the forest, and the Right Livelihood Foundation gave the movement its 1987 award “for its dedication to the conservation, restoration and ecologically-sound use of India’s natural resources”. Our profile of Sundarlal Bahuguna follows the movement, and our piece on the Char Dham routes covers the shrines in the same hills.

The mountains also carry risk. On 7 August 2013 the Minister of State for Home Affairs told the Rajya Sabha that the state government counted 580 dead and 5,474 missing and feared dead after the June floods and landslides, figures he called provisional.

What comes next

The Assembly chosen in 2022 completes its five-year term in 2027, and the budget projects a GSDP of Rs 4,27,716 crore for the year to March 2027. Census 2027 will replace the 2011 numbers. Press Information Bureau material gives 1 March 2027 as the reference date, and 1 October 2026 for the snow-bound and inaccessible parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, along with Ladakh.