Telangana’s GSDP Grew Despite The Impact Of Covid Pandemic

Hyderabad: Telangana State, being seven years in existence, came up trumping even as the Covid crisis engulfed the country in the first wave of the pandemic.

Telangana’s GSDP share in national GDP at current prices increased by 5 percent in 2020-21, and also recorded a 1.5 percent growth in GSDP, besides putting the brakes on the unemployment rate.

Union Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) in its reports quoted the improvement of Telangana. MoSPI said, Telangana’s GSDP share of national GDP at current prices increased significantly from 4.1 percent in 2014-15 to 4.4 percent in 2017-18 and is placed at 5 percent in 2020-21 despite the adverse impact of the pandemic. At constant prices, the State GSDP growth has been higher than that of the national GDP since 2015-16.

While the State GSDP grew by 11.6 percent in 2015-16, it decreased to 7.9 percent in 2019-20 and contracted to 1.26 percent in 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the national GDP, which grew by 8 percent in 2015-16, decreased to 4 percent in 2019-20 and fell sharply to minus 8 percent in 2020-21.

GSDP increase relates to the State’s performance in the primary sector, comprising agriculture, dairy, and poultry among others, which recorded a growth of 17.7 percent in 2020-21. The secondary and services sectors contracted to 5.2 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. “The agriculture sector grew by an impressive 20.9 percent in 2020-21, cushioning the impact of Covid-19. This was due to measures taken by the State government to stimulate the rural economy. Although industrial and services growth contracted, the contraction was less severe than at the national level,” Finance Department officials told.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy is estimated to have contracted by 4.4 percent in 2020 (compared to 2019). The second advance estimates released by the MoSPI reveal that the national economic output, measured by GDP, will shrink by 8 percent at current prices in 2020-21. However, Telangana’s GSDP grew by 1.35 percent at current (2020-21 base) prices.

The pandemic saw the unemployment rate rise and fall in business activity across the country, leading to a sharp contraction of the economy during the lockdown period.

Telangana was no exception, but the State’s economy displayed far more resilience than the rest of the country. The government moves obviously resulted in better insulation of its citizens against the impact of the pandemic.

India faced unemployment during the lockdown with the national unemployment rate shooting up from 7.8 percent in February last to 9.1 percent in December. Centre reported, Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Telangana had put up a better performance. The unemployment rate, which was 8.3 percent in the State in February last, dropped to 7 percent in December last. Though the unemployment in India peaked at 23.5 percent in April and 21.7 percent in May during the lockdown, the increase in the unemployment rate was delayed in Telangana and the peak was much lower at 14.7 percent.