At age 93 (bless him), Dr C Rangarajan is an indefatigable campaigner for an open economy and prudent fiscal management. He was a central banker for many years and the 19th governor of the Reserve Bank of India (1992-97). On October 14, 2025, he co-authored with Mr DK Srivastava an op-ed on the estimate of India’s potential growth rate and came to the conclusion that it was 6.5 per cent a year. He was charitable to say the growth rate was “in the present world environment, a reasonably high level” but quickly added “although for creating a higher growth of employment, we do need to push our potential growth further.”

I think an average growth rate of 6.5 years over several years is dismal. That rate keeps India in the group of countries with a ‘lower-middle income’ defined as Gross National Income per capita of between USD 1,146 and USD 4,515 (in 2024-25). India’s GNI of USD 2,650 (in 2024) places it in the group that includes Egypt, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam and Nigeria. The GNI per capita needs to double to get India out of the lower-middle income group. If India’s current rate of growth is sustained, it will take nine years to achieve that goal, and the unemployment situation may worsen,

Consensus of Estimates

RBI has increased its estimate of growth for 2025-26 from........

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