Key to Maharashtra's growth: Focus on boosting major economic centres

The underperformance of the state is largely due to its key economic centres, not letting the state take advantage of its underlying strengths

India’s economic reforms, which began in 1991, have created significant and unexpected outperformers and underperformers in terms of states’ relative economic growth. One of the biggest underperformers is Maharashtra. While it led the growth pack between 1981 and 1994, with real gross domestic product (GDP) expanding at a robust 6.6 per cent per annum as against the national average of 5.3 per cent, its subsequent estimated growth rate of 6.8 per cent per annum (1994 to 2020) was similar to the national average of 6.9 per cent. This relative decline in growth (1994-2020) was unexpected, especially given the state’s economic