· With urban India responsible for an increasingly large share of the national GDP, the Centre now hopes to bring out city-level GDP data.
· This could help both cities and investors make wise decisions, and also help municipal bodies raise funds for their own infrastructure needs.
· The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) — the research and analysis division of the same group which brings out the UK’s The Economist news magazine — recently did a feasibility study of various models to calculate city-level GDPs for the MoHUA (Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs ) .
· The final call on the feasibility of the project will be taken by the end of September 2018.
· If the project is approved, the process to calculate GDP for a pilot city is likely to begin by the end of the year, 2018.
· The urban sector is likely to account for three-fourths or 75% of India’s GDP by 2020, according to government data as well as several external reports.
· This is a sharp spike from 1951, when the urban sector only accounted for 29% of the national GDP. By 1981, it was 45%, and by 2011, it had crossed the 60% mark.
· A recent study by Brookings Institution found that several Indian cities rank in the 300 global cities with the fastest GDP growth rate.
· Its Global Metro Monitor report, released in June 2018, estimated that Hyderabad’s GDP was growing at 8.7%, followed by Surat at 7.9%, comparable with the fastest growing Chinese cities that dominate the list.
Source : The Hindu