OPINION | India's Growth Story Is Broad-Based, Not Metro-Centric |
For years, critics of India’s economic trajectory have argued that growth under the current political dispensation has been uneven, limited to a few urbanised, industrially advanced states, while the rest of the country lags behind. Recent data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at constant prices decisively dismantles this narrative. The numbers tell a different story: India’s economic expansion over the past five years has been broad-based, state-driven, and geographically diverse.
Between FY20 and FY25, India’s real GDP rose from Rs 145.35 lakh crore to Rs 187.97 lakh crore, an increase of nearly 29 per cent despite unprecedented global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical instability, and inflationary pressures. More significantly, the top ten fastest-growing major state economies outpaced the national average, with growth ranging from 30 per cent to an impressive 45 per cent. This is not the picture of a lopsided economy; it is the signature of a resilient, federal growth model.
At the top of the list is Assam, which emerged as India’s fastest-growing state economy with a remarkable 45 per cent expansion. Its GSDP rose from Rs 2.4 lakh crore in FY20 to Rs 3.5 lakh crore in FY25. Long dismissed by Delhi-centric analysts as a “peripheral”........