As was widely expected, the Indian economy grew by 6.5% in real terms in the recently concluded financial year 2024-25, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s official data showed on Friday. According to NSO’s second advance estimates, the country’s economy was projected to grow at 6.5% in 2024-25.
The Reserve Bank of India had projected 6.5% GDP growth for the fiscal year 2024-25. In 2023-24, India’s GDP grew by an impressive 9.2%, continuing to be the fastest-growing major economy.
According to official data, the economy grew 8.7% and 7.2%, respectively, in 2021-22 and 2022-23. The Ministry of Finance, in a report in March 2025, anticipated that the Indian economy would achieve a growth rate of 6.5% in 2024-25, despite considerable external headwinds.
The Finance Ministry monthly report added that the performance of the economy in the past quarters was driven by strong agricultural and service sector performance on the supply side and a steady increase in consumption and core merchandise and services exports on the demand side.
The official GDP growth data for the January-March quarter was also released today. The economy grew 7.4% during the quarter. During the April-June, July-September, and October-December 2024 quarters, the country’s economy, in real terms, observed a growth rate of 6.7%, 5.6%, and 6.2%, respectively.
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What Else?
In a projection on Thursday evening, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that India is set to remain the fastest-growing large economy in the world for the next 30 years. At the CII annual event, Minister Goyal said the country has maintained a steady growth rate of 6-7% and aims to push it further to 8% at constant prices. He noted that despite global uncertainties, India remains one of the best-performing emerging markets.
This February, the World Bank said India will need to grow by 7.8% on average over the next 22 years to achieve its aspirations of becoming a developed country by 2047. However, the World Bank asserted that getting there would require reforms and their implementation to be as ambitious as the target itself.
To realise the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’, a developed nation dream by 2047, India will need to achieve a growth rate of around 8% at constant prices, on average, for about a decade or two, the Economic Survey document for 2024-25 tabled on January 31 asserted.
India has made quite a turnaround, climbing the ladder of economic growth. This can be gauged from the 11th in 2013-14, India has positioned itself to become the fourth-largest economy. Even as India has overtaken many countries in terms of the size of the economy over the past decade, the per capita income in India remains very low.
In 2013, India was placed in the league of ‘Fragile 5’ economies. The term ‘Fragile 5’ was coined by a Morgan Stanley analyst and refers to a set of five emerging countries, including India, whose economies were not doing well. The other four countries were Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey.
