Trends in National Income and Sectoral Composition

Since independence, India's national income has grown many times over in real terms, but the more striking change for students of Economics is the shift in which sector produces that income. At independence, agriculture and allied activities accounted for roughly half of national income, reflecting an overwhelmingly agrarian economy. Industry's share rose steadily through the planning era as the country built up manufacturing capacity, while the sharpest and most sustained rise has been in the services (tertiary) sector — trade, transport, banking, communication, information technology, and other services — which now generates the largest share of India's Gross Value Added, followed by industry, with agriculture's share having fallen to under a fifth (the exact percentages shift a little each year with the NSO's provisional and revised estimates, so any single-year figure should be read as approximate). …