The Niti Aayog is planning to rank states on their overall performance on various development indicators including gross states domestic product, per-capita electricity consumption and state highways per sq km.

The Aayog has initiated discussions with experts and states on the indicators that will be tracked as part of the State Performance Index, which is likely to be in place by the middle of 2022. Per-capita net state domestic product, rural and urban teledensity and total rail route per sq km of area could also be among the indicators that would be tracked as part of the index.

The Aayog has already held a meeting each in December and January to firm up the parameters, a person familiar with the deliberations said.

“We are in discussions … gross state domestic product (GSDP) could be one component for ranking the states though no decision has been taken yet,” the person said.

The total GSDP is expected to take into account the growth rates in agriculture, industry and services.

The government aims to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2025 with $1 trillion coming from agriculture and allied activities, $1 trillion from manufacturing and $3 trillion from services. However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 has significantly impacted economic growth. India is currently a $3.1 trillion economy.

The idea is to be able to gauge performance of states better and also to have them compete with each other across sectors. “This will ensure holistic development of states and the country as a whole, because India’s GDP will grow if the GDP of states goes up substantially,” another person said.