According to the World Bank estimates of 2009, India with a GDP of $1,310,171 million is ranked 11th among 193 countries of the world. The Indian economy has shown consistent improvement in its growth rate over the last three decades. The International Monetary Fund data show that the leap in the annual average growth rate from 5.36 per cent in the 1980s to 7.74 per cent in the 2000s is encouraging, but growth has been far behind that of China. In the last three decades, China has maintained growth of above 10 per cent. It is also encouraging to note that in the last decade the Indian economy grew at a faster rate than Brazil, Vietnam and South Africa.
Although the macroeconomic indicators of India show an encouraging trend, a comparison of growth within the country highlights disparities across states. The top six contributors to national income are Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
According to the provisional estimates by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) as of March 8, 2011, Maharashtra has been among the top growth performers. In the five-year period between 2005-06 and 2009-10, the state grew at an annual average rate of 10.10 per cent, with most of the surge in the first three boom years. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh grew at 7.14 per cent every year — an improvement over the previous five years’ performance, but still much lower than the national average of 8.33 per cent. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh bettered the national average while West Bengal and Tamil Nadu gave lower growth performances. (Click here for graph)
| YEARS OF LEAP Decadal growth rate of GDP (at constant prices) (%) | |||
| Country | Growth in 1980s | Growth in 1990s | Growth in 2000s |
| Brazil | 3.03 | 2.86 | 3.74 |
| China | 10.84 | 11.00 | 10.84 |
| India | 5.36 | 6.27 | 7.74 |
| Vietnam | 5.79 | 8.12 | 7.58 |
| South Africa | 1.35 | 1.96 | 3.88 |
| Source: International Monetary Fund | |||
According to the latest data released by the CSO, Uttarakhand was the top growth performer between 2005-06 and 2009-10 — its 12.82 per cent annual average was higher than its growth in the previous five years. The second highest performance comes from Bihar at 11.74 per cent every year — the turnaround in the state from 2006-07, with construction as the leading sector, is a well-known story. The state has moved dramatically from being the economy with the slowest growth in the period 2000-01 to 2004-05, though it has a huge backlog to overcome. Chhattisgarh and Orissa are the other large states that have grown at a fast double-digit clip over the period, while Haryana, Jharkhand and Gujarat have all turned in growth rates exceeding 9 per cent.
At the other end of the table is Assam, at 6.03 per cent every year, though its growth performance has actually improved consistently over the years from 3.4 per cent in 2005-06 to 8.08 per cent in 2009-10. Growth rates of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have been in the range of 7 to 7.5 per cent. These are states with large populations and need to catch up with the rest of the country.
Of the 30 states/Union Territories for which the CSO has given estimates for the period 2005-06 to 2009-10, nine have average annual growth rates exceeding 9 per cent and five have growth rates less than 7 per cent. Clearly, almost all states have shown higher growth in recent times, but some states continue to lag and this unevenness can be addressed only by identifying the potential sectors in each state.
Indian States Development Scorecard is a weekly feature by Indicus Analytics that focuses on the progress in India and the states across various socio-economic parameters
