generate political debate; continued social, political, and economic
rigidities hold back needed initiatives. The economy has posted an
excellent average growth rate of 6.8% since 1994, reducing poverty
by about 10 percentage points. India is capitalizing on its large
numbers of well-educated people skilled in the English language to
become a major exporter of software services and software workers.
Despite strong growth, the World Bank and others worry about the
combined state and federal budget deficit, running at approximately
9% of GDP. The huge and growing population is the fundamental
social, economic, and environmental problem. In late December 2004,
a major tsunami took nearly 11,000 lives, left almost 6,000 missing,
destroyed $1.2 billion worth of property, and severely damaged the
fishing fleet.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$3.319 trillion (2004 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
6.2% (2004 est.)

GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $3,100 (2004 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 23.6%
industry: 28.4%
services: 48% (2002 est.)

Labor force:
482.2 million (2004 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture 60%, industry 17%, services 23% (1999)

Unemployment rate:
9.2% (2004 est.)

Population below poverty line:
25% (2002 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 3.5%
highest 10%: 33.5% (1997)

Distribution of family income - Gini index:
37.8 (1997)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
4.2% (2004 est.)

Investment (gross fixed):
23.8% of GDP (2004 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $67.3 billion
expenditures: $104 billion, including capital expenditures of $13.5
billion (2004 est.)

Public debt:
59.7% of GDP (federal debt only; state debt not included) (2004
est.)

Agriculture - products:
rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes;
cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish

Industries:
textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation
equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software

Industrial production growth rate:
7.4% (2004 est.)

Electricity - production:
547.2 billion kWh (2002)

Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 81.7%
hydro: 14.5%
nuclear: 3.4%
other: 0.3% (2001)

Electricity - consumption:
510.1 billion kWh (2002)

Electricity - exports:
350 million kWh (2002)

Elec