BJP’s recent electoral gains against the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal have once again brought focus to the state’s economic future and its role in India’s broader growth story. Against this backdrop, Sanjeev Sanyal said reviving Kolkata is central to reducing India’s reducing east-west economic divide.
He was speaking on “The Relative Economic Performance of Bharatiya States.” Sanyal argued that while western and southern states surged ahead after the 1991 economic reforms, eastern India continued to lag behind. He pointed out that West Bengal’s contribution to the national economy has fallen sharply from around 11% after Partition to nearly 5.5% today.
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#WATCH | Mumbai | Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Sanjeev Sanyal says, “The relative performance of the Indian states shows one or two very clear trends. The first is the much talk about the North-South divide, which is not the real economic crisis… pic.twitter.com/huMrFrfg8S
— ANI (@ANI) May 6, 2026 ‘Real economic gap is east-west, not north-south’
Sanyal said the country’s biggest economic imbalance is between eastern and western India, not the commonly discussed north-south divide. “The real economic gap in India is not north-south, but east-west. To fix this, we must restore Kolkata to its former position as a premier industrial and financial hub. The city must serve as the ‘anchor engine’ for the entire eastern seaboard,” he said. According to Sanyal, Kolkata’s revival is not merely a regional concern but a national economic necessity if India aims to sustain a 7–8% GDP growth trajectory and achieve the vision of a “Viksit Bharat” by 2047.
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Kolkata’s decline led to regional slowdown
Sanyal said eastern India suffered because Kolkata, once one of India’s most important commercial cities, stopped functioning as the region’s economic driver decades ago. “Eastern India’s problem is that its heavyweight, Kolkata, has not been pumping for at least half a century,” he said, referring to the de-industrialisation phase that began in the 1980s.
He added that the decline was not restricted to industries alone. Cultural and educational institutions also weakened over time, resulting in large-scale migration of young talent from Bengal. “Despite the Bengalis being very proud of their culture,” many institutions declined alongside the economy, he noted.
Sanyal explained that eastern India must be connected more deeply with global supply chains through better infrastructure, industrial growth and export-oriented development led by Bengal. He said Kolkata could once again emerge as India’s gateway to Southeast Asia, powering a fresh wave of manufacturing and services exports.
“This is not only important from the perspective of West Bengal or Kolkata itself; it is a critical part of getting the eastern half of India to fire away,” he said. Focusing on what he described as a changing political and economic environment in eastern India, Sanyal said there is now greater alignment between the Centre and the region’s broader economic direction.
“For the first time in two generations, the underlying economic philosophy of the regime is pro-growth,” he said. He called Kolkata’s revival a “national project,” and stated that rebuilding the city’s industrial and financial strength would be critical not just for Bengal, but for India’s long-term economic ambitions.
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