‘Shouldn’t get…,’ Tharoor warns as India overtakes UK as 5th largest economy

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said the country should not get ‘carried away’ by reports the Indian economy had overtaken that of the United Kingdom to become the fifth largest in the world. Tharoor said the reason for his caution was that while ‘a pat on our collective backs isn’t undeserved’, the country’s sizeable population remains a concern.India has a population 20 times that of the UK and therefore its GDP per capita is lower.The Congress MP tweeted a photo caption that read: “India, with a GDP of $854.7 billion has to manage a country with a population of 1,582,311,759,132… The UK’s GDP of $816 billion has to account for a current population of 68,655,180.””… the population numbers are accurate so the inference that we have to stretch our GDP over many more people remains true,” the Congress leader said.”While many of us couldn’t resist a post-colonial frisson of pleasure at the news that India’s GDP has overtaken the United Kingdom’s, this forward explains why we shouldn’t get too carried away….still, a pat on our collective backs isn’t undeserved!” Tharoor said earlier.Meanwhile, Dr Arvind Virmani, India’s former chief economic advisor believes India will rise to become the third largest economy – behind the United States and China (based on current figures) by 2030.According to data from the International Monetary Fund, India ranks behind the US, China, Japan and Germany in terms of the size of its economy in ‘nominal’ cash terms – around $854 billion. A decade ago India was 11th and the UK was fifth.

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