Business2 min
J&K's Per Capita Income Climbs to Rs 1.55 Lakh, But Who Is Really Gaining?
Jammu and Kashmir's average income has jumped nearly 148 per cent in a decade, yet the figures raise hard questions about jobs, inflation and who benefits.
Jammu and Kashmir's per capita income rose from Rs 62,327 in 2014-15 to Rs 1,54,703 in 2024-25, a gain of nearly 148 per cent over ten years. That is a headline worth celebrating. But the number is an average, and averages can hide a lot of ground-level detail.
Here is a way to picture it. Divide Rs 1,54,703 by 365 and you get roughly Rs 424 a day. Nobody in the Union Territory is literally taking home that amount each day. The figure is simply total economic output spread across the population. It says nothing about how that output is shared between a shopkeeper in Srinagar, a farm worker in Kupwara and a government clerk in Jammu.
There is also the matter of inflation. The increase is measured at current prices, so rising costs are baked into the total. Once prices are adjusted, the real improvement in what families can actually buy is smaller than the headline suggests.
The comparison with the rest of India is sobering. National per capita Net National Income in 2024-25 was about Rs 2,00,162, which puts J&K at roughly 77 per cent of the national average. The gap has narrowed, but it has not closed. Many richer states have built strong manufacturing, technology, financial services and export businesses. Those sectors create jobs, supply chains and higher productivity, which feed back into wages. J&K has plenty of raw advantages, including educated young people, natural beauty and time-tested industries. What it lacks is the economic depth to turn those assets into steady, well-paid work.
Agriculture offers a clear example. Apples, walnuts, cherries and saffron already have strong markets, yet growers often sell raw produce and capture only a slice of the final price. Cold storage, grading, packaging and direct access to buyers decide how much of the money stays with the farmer. Processing and branding could change that equation, turning record harvests into record incomes. For readers, the lesson is simple: a bigger crop does not automatically mean a bigger paycheck. Read the full opinion piece at Greater Kashmir.
