Even as we move to a flatter world brought about by greater factor mobility, improved communication, digital technologies and wider transportation networks, we aren’t seeing the end of geography. Spatial dimensions remain an important element in the overall development process. Convergence of incomes is not a seamless process. It is imperative to keep an eye on statistics at sub-national levels to understand regional variations and to dovetail aggregate growth models and strategies with regional building blocs. It is in this spirit that the ‘Handbook of Statistics on Indian States’, is being brought out by the Reserve Bank annually since 2016. The Handbook provides State-wise statistics on a wide range of socio-economic indicators of the regional economy of India viz., social and demographic characteristics, state domestic product, agriculture, price and wages, industry, infrastructure, banking and fiscal developments.

This sixth edition has updates of the existing data series and its coverage has been expanded to incorporate three more indicators, viz., (i) agriculture and allied activities (State-wise Storage Capacity of Foodgrains [pertains to Food Corporation of India (both own and hired) and state agencies], State-wise Storage Capacity for Foodgrains and Utilization under FCI), (ii) Social and Demographic indicators (State-wise Gross Enrolment Ratio) and (iii) Infrastructure (State-wise Number of Government Hospitals in Rural and Urban Areas). To keep this issue handy, the time coverage has been reduced. However, to access the old data, users may visit RBI website (www.rbi.org.in).

This publication is the result of committed efforts of a team from DEPR, Regional offices and Central office comprising Deepa S. Raj, Raj Rajesh, M. Seenuvasan, Rasmi Ranjan Behera, Pallavi, B.S. Choudhary, Prabal Bilantu, Neeraj Kumar, Kunal Rahar, Kirti Gupta, Anchal Agarwal Jain, Sarita Sharma, T.P. Meitei, Rakhe Balachandran, Shromona Ganguly, Upasana Sharma, Alice Sabastian, Kapil Dev Manhas, Madhuchhanda Sahoo, Akash Kovuri, Amarendra Acharya, and Ramesh Golait, under the overall guidance of Dr. Deba Prasad Rath, Officer-in-Charge of Department of Economic and Policy Research.

The Handbook is available on the RBI’s website (www.rbi.org.in). Feedback/comments are solicited to help improve the content of the Handbook. Your responses may be sent to us at email

Mridul K. Saggar
Executive Director
November 24, 2021