In an inimical climate for global economies, with US President Donald Trump playing the disruptor by unleashing a tariff war, India stands out as one of the few countries that have displayed sustained growth and possessed economic stability. While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has claimed that our nation has maintained its position as the world’s fastest-growing economy for the fourth straight year, her assertion is bolstered by projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that India will remain the fastest-growing major economy over the next two years.
According to the April 2025 edition of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, India’s economy is expected to grow by 6.2 per cent in 2025 and 6.3 per cent in 2026, some of the highest among global economies. India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has almost doubled during the last decade. According to IMF data, in 2014, India’s GDP was estimated at $2.0 trillion, which went up to $3.9 trillion in 2024.
This represents an increase of around 1.9 trillion over the decade. The April edition of IMF’s World Economic Outlook report said that India’s nominal GDP for FY26 is expected to reach around $4,187.017 billion, which is slightly higher than that of Japan, which is estimated at $4,186.431 billion, thereby taking India from its current fifth position to fourth place by the end of 2025 and onto the third in three years’ time!
All this sounds very well, and the NDA dispensation in Delhi is right to celebrate such a feat. However, detractors will be quick to ask some pertinent questions as to whether such abstract figures reflect realities on the ground. For instance, one can ask as to who contributes most to the national GDP; though the Finance Minister has said all sectors of the economy – services, manufacturing, and agriculture – had contributed immensely to India’s growth in FY25, one suspects that a bulk of the GDP growth is caused by a handful of big business groups.
Even more pertinent is the query as to whether the growth has been inclusive and percolated down to the grassroots level. That this is not so is mirrored by the fact that India’s per capita GDP is extremely low, with the country not even ranking in the top 100 when it comes to GDP per capita. Equally dismal is the per capita income scenario. No doubt, with a nominal GDP of $4.187 trillion, India is set to move ahead of Japan’s GDP of $4.186 trillion by the end of 2025, but Japan’s per capita GDP of $33,900 is overwhelmingly bigger than India’s per capita GDP of $2,880, as stated by the IMF data. This signifies that the vast segment of the nation’s wealth is controlled by a minuscule segment of citizens, thereby continuing to place India among developing rather than developed nations category!