The new GDP print—6.5 % for FY 2024-25—arrived on 30 May with little fanfare and even less cheer. At that pace, India will fall woefully short of its own ambition: to lift per-capita income from roughly $2,880 today to $17,000 by 2047. Simple arithmetic says incomes must rise by more than 8% a year for 22 straight years; headline GDP, therefore, has to motor along at around 9%, given the modest growth in population. The current growth path is not a mere statistical shortfall—it can weigh on India’s development ambitions.

Some policy makers feel that sustained high growth is impossible in the current global context. History disagrees. South Korea, battered and resource-poor, clocked nearly 8% between 1962 and 1989; China averaged double digits from 1980 to 2010. Both countries did this while oil shocks, recessions, Asian financial turmoil and the birth—and death—of hyper-globalisation raged outside their borders. The lesson is blunt: decisive policy can drive Indian economy towards take-off.

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