The narrative is compelling. Tamil Nadu’s investment narrative is built on headline MoUs and global summit announcements. Tamil Nadu, we are told, is India’s most investor-friendly state. So why, year after year, does the government end up spending ₹ 40,000–60,000 crore more than it earns?

Every Year, the State Spends More Than It Earns. Every Single Year.

Think of the State government as a household. It earns income through taxes, central grants, and fees. It spends on salaries, pensions, committed expenditure programmes, roads, and hospitals. A responsible household tries to keep its spending within its income. Tamil Nadu has not managed this in at least nine consecutive years.

The chart below tells the whole story at once. The teal bars are what the State collects. The red bars are what it spends and noticeably the red bar is always taller, not once, not in a bad year, but every single year. The dotted lines show how Tamil Nadu’s revenue deficit as a share of GSDP compares with Gujarat and Maharashtra, context that makes the persistence of TN’s gap hard to dismiss.

Tamil Nadu’s fiscal problem is more of the structural nature and growth alone is not fixing it. In FY17, the State’s revenue deficit was 1.0% of its economy. By FY21, at the COVID peak, it hit 3.49%. It has since recovered, but only to 1.58%, a floor that has not broken since FY17. The deficit persisted even in FY24 and FY25, years when the economy grew at double digits, with the revenue deficit remaining above ₹ 44,000 crore. A cyclical problem would have eased with growth but it is noteworthy that, this one did not. This tells you that the stress did not dissipate like a cyclical one would, the persistence of it is a clear indication that it reflects of a much graver problem that is a structural failure of fiscal management.

What does that mean in practice? Even in years when Tamil Nadu’s economy was booming, the government was still spending more than it earned. Economic growth alone is not fixing the gap.

What this gap costs in real terms: The FY25 revenue deficit of ₹ 49,279 crore is roughly what it would cost to build 80 new government medical colleges, or fund the annual salaries of 5 lakh school teachers. It is not being spent on any of that. It is covering the accumulated cost of commitments already made.1

Tamil Nadu’s GFD has averaged 3.5–4.3% of its economy across the period. Gujarat kept its deficit below 2% in most years, touching as low as 0.76% in FY23. Maharashtra stayed between 0.9% and 2.8%. In FY25, Tamil Nadu’s GFD stands at 3.49%, nearly double Maharashtra’s 2.44% and almost twice Gujarat’s 1.86%. The pattern stood the same for about eight consecutive years, that demonstrates the severity of the crisis.

“Tamil Nadu owes ₹ 9.56 lakh crore. That is more than twice what the government spends in an entire year, and it equals roughly ₹ 1.23 lakh for every man, woman, and child in the State.”

Share Indian Public Finance Review

Gujarat Often Runs a Revenue Surplus. Tamil Nadu Has Never Come Close.

The revenue deficit is the most revealing fiscal ratio of all that measures whether a state is spending more on day-to-day operations than it earns. A government that persistently runs a revenue deficit is borrowing to pay its current bills, salaries, pensions, operational costs, more than allocating funds to build assets. The peer comparison here is revealing.

Gujarat ran a revenue surplus in six of the nine years shown, meaning it collected more in routine revenue than it spent on routine operations. Maharashtra’s revenue deficit stayed below 0.64% in most years and averaged around 0.44% in FY25. Tamil Nadu’s revenue deficit has never gone below 1.0% and peaked at 3.49% during COVID. Even in its best post-COVID year (FY23), Tamil Nadu’s revenue deficit was 1.53%, three times Maharashtra’s in the same year. In FY25, Tamil Nadu’s revenue deficit stands at 1.59% of GSDP, compared to a national average of 0.24%2, making it a clear outlier even at the all-India level. This means Tamil Nadu is borrowing to pay for its present akin to investing regularly in high-ticket projects to build for its future.

Here is the simplest way to understand this: Gujarat is a household that earns more than it spends on daily needs and puts aside some savings. Tamil Nadu is a household that borrows every single month just to cover groceries, electricity, and rent - before even thinking about building anything new.

One may argue that the crisis could also be an effect of the COVID-19. But it is noteworthy that the divergence existed before COVID, worsened during it, and has not been corrected since. Tamil Nadu’s routine operations consistently cost more than its routine revenues, and that gap has to be borrowed. Every rupee borrowed to cover this gap will cost ₹ 1.20 or ₹ 1.30 to repay once interest is added. The State is effectively paying tomorrow’s price for today’s running costs.

Every rupee borrowed to cover this gap will cost ₹ 1.20 or ₹ 1.30 to repay once interest is added. The State is effectively paying tomorrow’s price for today’s running costs.

Subscribe now

Gujarat Now Invests 2.71% of Its Economy in Infrastructure. Tamil Nadu Invests 1.53%.

More than 80% of Tamil Nadu’s budget goes to revenue expenditure, salaries, pensions, interest, entitlement transfers. Less than 10% goes to capital outlay: the roads, hospitals, schools, and industrial parks that build future productive capacity. The peer comparison shows not just an absolute shortfall but a direction problem.

In FY17, Tamil Nadu’s capital outlay at 1.59% of GSDP was below Gujarat’s 1.92% but broadly comparable. By FY25, the gap has become a chasm. Gujarat’s capital outlay has climbed to 2.71% of its economy, a 77% improvement. Tamil Nadu’s has gone in the opposite direction, declining from 1.59% to 1.53%. To match Gujarat’s FY25 capital investment intensity, Tamil Nadu would need to spend roughly ₹ 84,500 crore on infrastructure. It spent ₹ 47,681 crore. The shortfall against Gujarat alone is ₹ 37,000 crore in a single year. The reason is structural: over 80% of the State’s budget is already committed to salaries, pensions, interest payments, and welfare transfers before the first rupee of capital spending is allocated.

What could ₹ 37,000 crore build? Roughly 60 new government hospitals. Or over 1 lakh kilometres of village roads. Or 400 new government colleges. That is the cost, every single year, of falling behind on investment.3

Why is revenue stagnating despite a growing economy? The tax base is structurally narrow. A disproportionate share of collections comes from petroleum products, liquor, and property stamp duties, sources that do not track broad-based economic activity.

Subscribe now

Why Growth Isn’t Fixing the Finances: Four Structural Problems

The fiscal data above describes symptoms. The causes run deeper. Tamil Nadu’s economy is growing, but the structure of that growth, who invests, which sectors lead, which districts benefit, how infrastructure is built, determines whether growth translates into fiscal capacity. In four dimensions, the structure is working against the State’s finances.

STRUCTURAL DRIVER 1: INVESTMENT MOMENTUM, LOSING GROUND TO COMPETITORS

Tamil Nadu’s investment narrative is built on headline wins, the Apple ecosystem, the automotive corridor, and a string of global MoUs. But the headline story and the data story are diverging. On the metrics that matter most, FDI inflows, GST growth momentum, manufacturing value capture, Tamil Nadu is losing ground to states competing harder for the same capital.

Tamil Nadu’s FDI inflows have been essentially flat since FY20, moving between ₹ 1,000 and ₹ 3,700 crore. Maharashtra pulled in ₹ 19,589 crore in FY25 alone, more than five times Tamil Nadu’s figure. Even excluding Maharashtra’s scale advantage, Tamil Nadu is not accelerating its share of incoming foreign capital.

Foreign investment matters because it creates jobs without requiring the government to borrow. Every factory that a foreign company builds in Tamil Nadu is a source of employment, wages, and taxes, without adding a single rupee to the State’s debt. Flat FDI means Tamil Nadu is missing out on that engine of growth.

STRUCTURAL DRIVER 2: THE MANUFACTURING VALUE GAP

Tamil Nadu has historically been India’s manufacturing heartland. It still is, by some measures. But the ASI data for 2023-24 reveals a structural problem that investment summit press releases do not mention: Tamil Nadu has a disproportionately large share of India’s factories and workers, but a disproportionately small share of its output and value added.

Tamil Nadu runs 15.43% of India’s factories and employs 15.24% of its industrial workforce. But it produces only 10.11% of national manufacturing output and 10.26% of GVA. Gujarat, with fewer factories and workers, produces 17.22% of national output and 14.20% of GVA. Maharashtra shows a similar pattern. Tamil Nadu has scale without productivity intensity, its manufacturing base is concentrated in labour-intensive, lower-value segments rather than the capital-intensive, high-value processing that drives Gujarat’s disproportionate output share.

The fiscal implication: Gujarat’s manufacturing generates roughly 70% more output per factory than Tamil Nadu’s. This gap in value capture translates directly into weaker GST collections, lower corporate earnings, and lower wage income per worker. Tamil Nadu has the factories and the workforce, but not the fiscal returns that should come with them.

STRUCTURAL DRIVER 3: INFRASTRUCTURE EXECUTION FAILURES

Tamil Nadu’s infrastructure problem is not a funding problem. Central allocations are available. The constraint is execution at the state level, and the fiscal cost of that execution failure falls entirely on the State’s own balance sheet.

Tamil Nadu borrows heavily to fund infrastructure. That borrowing creates immediate interest obligations and the productivity returns that would justify the debt are supposed to materialise over time. The problem is that a significant share of that infrastructure is being built slowly, incompletely, or not at all.

This pattern is visible across sectors. NH-48, the Chennai–Vellore highway, has received over ₹ 1,500 crore in central allocation and has been under construction for thirteen years. It remains incomplete. As of early 2026, Tamil Nadu had acquired only 24% of the land required for ongoing railway projects, despite the Ministry of Railways repeatedly flagging the need for faster State-level land procurement. Central funding is available. State-level execution is the constraint.

The same dynamic is most visible in the power sector. TANGEDCO represents a fiscal drain that combines infrastructure failure with governance failure. Between FY20 and FY25, the State transferred ₹ 73,821 crore to TANGEDCO to cover operational losses and tariff gaps. Despite this, the CAG’s 2024 report found TANGEDCO’s loan liability had reached ₹ 1.35 lakh crore. The UDAY restructuring had seen its debt rise 52% in five years. Tariff reform was not implemented. The structural causes of losses were not addressed. Here, borrowing is not just delayed in delivering returns, it is financing assets that continue to generate losses.

STRUCTURAL DRIVER 4: SPATIAL INEQUALITY, 8 DISTRICTS CARRY EVERYTHING

Tamil Nadu’s growth is real, but its fiscal base is narrow. The State’s economic activity, and therefore tax generation, is concentrated in a small number of industrial and urban districts. This concentration matters not just for inequality, but for how the State earns and spends.

Chengalpattu records a per capita income of ₹ 6.75 lakh per year. Thiruvarur records ₹ 1.49 lakh. The richest district earns 4.5 times more per person than the poorest. Only 8 of the State’s 38 districts exceed the State average. The remaining 30 are below it. This means that a disproportionate share of income, consumption, and tax revenue is generated in a handful of districts.

But expenditure does not follow this geography. Welfare commitments, healthcare, transport, pensions, and social transfers operate across all 38 districts. The State is therefore required to spend broadly, even though it earns narrowly. Unlike revenue, which rises with economic concentration, welfare spending is designed to be universal and counter-cyclical, expanding precisely in regions where income and tax capacity are weakest. This means that as the State pushes for broader inclusion, expenditure obligations increase in districts that contribute the least to the tax base. Over time, this creates a structural pressure on the budget, where incremental spending is not matched by incremental revenue. As welfare commitments expand, this mismatch becomes more binding, locking the State into a cycle of rising expenditure without a commensurate expansion in its fiscal base.

Leave a comment

Growth Alone Will Not Fix This. It Hasn’t for Eight Years

The most persistent, and most dangerous, assumption in Tamil Nadu’s policy discourse is that fiscal health will follow economic growth automatically. The data of the last eight years is a direct refutation of this assumption.

Tamil Nadu’s real GSDP grew more than 65% between FY17 and FY25. Exports doubled. Industrial investment flowed in. And yet the revenue deficit is higher today than it was eight years ago. The gross fiscal deficit has stayed persistently above 3.4% of GSDP. Capital investment as a share of the economy has fallen. Own revenue mobilisation has stagnated. Growth is happening, but it is not paying for itself.

Growth cannot fix this because the problem is structural. Revenue does not grow with the economy because the tax base is narrow and weakly responsive to aggregate economic expansion. Expenditure does not ease with growth because revenue commitments are politically entrenched. Debt does not stabilise because new borrowing is required every year, and TANGEDCO’s liability adds to fiscal exposure without appearing on the headline debt figures.

If this continues, more and more of the State’s money will go into paying past debt, and less into building roads, hospitals, and schools. The government will keep running its programmes, but it will have less room each year to invest in things that improve people’s daily lives. Projects will move slower, new infrastructure will be delayed, and the gap between what the State needs to build and what it can afford to build will keep widening. Over time, the system will become harder to sustain, with rising debt but fewer visible improvements on the ground. The State will not collapse, but it will steadily fall behind.

Data sources: RBI Handbook of Statistics on Indian States (2024 edition). Peer state ratios for Gujarat and Maharashtra compiled from RBI Handbook data. Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission Economic Survey 2024–25 for district-level income data. ASI 2023-24 (PIB release) for manufacturing output shares. Ministry of Commerce parliamentary question data for FDI inflows. Government of India GST portal for state-wise GST collections. Finance Commission Evaluation Study on Tamil Nadu (2023).

Kerala is celebrated as a model state with a 95.3% literacy rate and exceptional social indicators. However, its success relies heavily on external support. In 2023, remittances from Malayalis working abroad reached ₹ 1.95 lakh crore, accounting for 17% of GSDP and propping up household spending. Despite this, state finances are failing. Between 2016 and 2025, Kerala’s fiscal position weakened as revenues failed to cover mounting expenditure. The economy, driven by services and remittances, cannot generate sufficient government revenue. This structural flaw is aggravated by an ageing population and persistent unemployment, creating a deepening fiscal crisis.

This analysis benchmarks ten fiscal indicators across Kerala, Haryana, and Odisha to isolate the drivers of financial health. The contrast is sharp. While Odisha faces similar economic shocks, it maintains superior fiscal discipline and resource prioritisation. Kerala’s persistent stress is therefore not a structural inevitability but a consequence of specific policy choices regarding resource allocation and debt sustainability.

Subscribe now

II. Methodological Framework

This analysis uses a Fiscal Resilience Index based on the NITI Aayog framework. It looks at five areas: quality of spending, revenue generation, fiscal discipline, debt levels, and debt sustainability. Each area is given equal importance, and the indicators within them are also weighted equally.

The index compares Kerala with Haryana and Odisha, which have similar economic size. Data is adjusted over time using a common reference period starting from 2014–15. Actual figures are used to track trends over time, while index scores help compare performance between states and across periods.

III. The Composite Picture: The Collapse Of Fiscal Resilience

The Fiscal Resilience Index reveals a stark divergence. Starting at 37.01 in 2016–17, Kerala has steadily declined, while Odisha climbed from 66.88 to 73.13 over the same period. This widening gap highlights a structural deterioration in Kerala’s fiscal health that persists beyond temporary economic shocks.

The widening fiscal gap is not a pandemic anomaly, it is a structural failure. Even after recovery, the contrast is stark: in 2022, Odisha scored 64.54, while Kerala languished at 24.83, a gap that widened to over 50 points by 2024. This consistent underperformance, which also trails Haryana, proves the problem isn’t external shocks or the social model’s cost, but deep policy choices.

Share

IV. Quality of Expenditure: Starved Of Investment

Every year for the past nine years, Kerala has had the lowest score of the three states. This isn’t a one-time thing. It shows that there is a bigger, ongoing problem with how the State spends its money.

The index started at 5.31 in 2016–17, rose briefly to 13.58 in 2017–18, and has since moved up and down without any steady improvement. It had dropped to 3.29 by 2024–25, which was one of its lowest levels. This drop happened during a normal time, without any big shocks like the pandemic or the floods in 2018. That makes it important because it means that the problem is with the way money is spent, not with temporary things.

Looking at the details, Kerala spends much less on capital investment than the national average. In the post-pandemic years, its capital outlay has been about 1.29% of GSDP, compared to 2.63% for India as a whole. Its share of developmental spending is also much lower, at about 40.12% of total expenditure against a national average of 69.74%. These are large gaps that affect long-term growth.

V. Half The Nation's Infrastructure Spend

The share of capital outlay in GSDP shows how much a State is investing in productive assets like infrastructure. At the national level, this has ranged between 2.17% and 2.63% across the three phases studied. Kerala’s figures are much lower. They were 1.21% in Phase 1 from 2016–17 to 2019–20, 1.60% during the pandemic years, and 1.29% in the post-pandemic period. In each phase, Kerala has invested at about half the national rate.

Pandemic-era capital spending actually exceeded post-pandemic levels. This anomaly was driven by infrastructure investment through the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, which offset budget cuts. However, rising repayment duties and budget strain have since curtailed this support.

Low capital investment stifles growth by increasing business costs and creating infrastructure gaps. This further restricts the formal sector, limiting tax revenue. Kerala faces acute pressure here due to a tiny manufacturing base, a consumption-heavy economy and heavy reliance on remittances.

VI. Revenue Mobilisation: Revenue That Can't Pay Its Own Bills

Revenue mobilisation is vital: a State must fund its own costs. Kerala’s performance is mixed. Administrative gains, including better GST compliance and the Kerala One portal, boosted its index to 46.56 in 2023–24. However, these improvements face a structural ceiling. While its own revenue is slightly above the national GSDP average, it finances only 23.53% to 29.89% of total expenditure. This dramatically undercuts the national average of 38% to 43%. This severe funding gap forces dependency on transfers or borrowing, directly escalating future repayment burdens.

VII. Fiscal Prudence: Breaking The Deficit Rule, Year After Year

Kerala consistently violates the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act’s 3% GSDP fiscal deficit limit. The deficit breached this cap repeatedly, from 2017-18 through the pandemic and into recent years. Even when targets were technically met, this was often due to temporary fixes, not structural strength. This failure is evident in the Fiscal Prudence Index, which plummeted from 40.73 in 2016-17 to a nadir of 0.00 in 2021-22. Despite a brief post-pandemic rally, the index again crashed to 8.11 by 2024-25. This persistent cycle of decline confirms the problem is structural: fixed spending commitments remain prohibitively high, unmanageable even in stable economic times.

The revenue deficit gives an even clearer picture. It shows how much the State is borrowing to meet day-to-day expenses instead of investing in assets. Kerala’s revenue deficit has remained much higher than the national average across all phases. This means the State is regularly borrowing to pay for salaries, pensions, and welfare schemes. Over time, this creates pressure on public finances and reduces the space for productive investment.

VIII. Deficit Discipline: A Structural Hole, Not A Pandemic Scar

Chart 6 compares Kerala’s fiscal deficit with the national average and the FRBM limit of 3% of GSDP. The trend is clear. Kerala has crossed this limit in most of the years studied, and even when it has stayed within it, the margin has been small. In 2020–21, the deficit rose to 5.31%, well above the national average of 3.41%. While this was partly due to the pandemic, the more important point is that deficits have remained high even after the recovery. They stood at 3.56% in 2023–24 and are expected to remain at a similar level in 2024–25, while the national average has eased.

This pattern has long-term consequences. Repeated deficits add to the State’s debt, and higher debt leads to rising interest payments. These payments must be met from a revenue base that is already under strain. Over time, this creates a cycle where borrowing today increases financial pressure tomorrow, making it harder for the State to bring its finances under control.

IX. The Debt Index: Debt Rising. No Bottom In Sight

Among all the indicators, the Debt Index shows the clearest and most consistent trend. It has fallen in seven out of nine years, dropping from 37.26 in 2016–17 to 15.09 in 2024–25. Unlike other measures that show some recovery in certain years, this decline has been steady. It reflects the cumulative effect of repeated deficits, rising interest payments, and the build-up of liabilities over time. Kerala’s debt levels have remained high across all phases, and interest payments alone take up a large share of its revenue, much higher than the national average.

The situation is more serious when off-budget borrowing is included. The Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board has raised over ₹ 50,000 crore through market borrowings backed by State guarantees. These do not fully show up in the official deficit but still add to the State’s obligations. When these are included, Kerala’s effective debt level rises further, and repayment pressures are already becoming visible.

X. The Interest Burden: Revenues Mortgaged Before Allocation

Chart 8 highlights one of the most immediate pressures on Kerala’s finances, the share of revenue used just to pay interest. Nationally, this has been around 12% to 14%, but in Kerala, it has stayed much higher, at about 18% to 21% over the period studied. This means that out of every ₹ 100 the State earns, around ₹ 20 goes straight to interest payments before anything can be spent on services like health, education, or infrastructure. In absolute terms, this translates to more than ₹ 20,000 crore annually in pure debt service. The same sum could fund the complete upgrade of every one of Kerala’s 14 district hospitals to NABH standards and still leave the bulk unspent, or cover the cost of resilient flood drainage and embankment infrastructure roughly six times over, based on the State’s own 2018 disaster reconstruction assessments. It is a recurring bill that leaves no assets behind. Compared to the national average, Kerala is working with significantly less fiscal space from the start, and this has been a steady pattern rather than a temporary issue.

This creates a cycle that is hard to break. High interest payments reduce the money available for other needs, which then forces the State to borrow more. More borrowing leads to even higher interest payments in the future, tightening the pressure further. The situation is made worse by off-budget borrowings, such as those through KIIFB, which add to the real interest burden even if they are not fully reflected in the main figures.

Leave a comment

XI. Debt Sustainability: Growing Too Slow to Outrun the Debt

Debt sustainability asks a simple question: Is the economy growing fast enough to keep up with rising debt and interest payments? Kerala’s record here is uneven and fragile. It started strong in 2016–17, with economic growth clearly outpacing interest costs. But this quickly changed. By 2017–18, rising interest payments overtook growth, and the index fell sharply. This pattern of instability has continued over time.

Even after the economy had largely stabilised following the pandemic, the index dropped to a low level. This shows that the problem is not just due to temporary shocks. It reflects a deeper weakness, where debt costs tend to rise faster than the economy in normal conditions. There has been some improvement in the last two years, but this is mainly because interest costs have grown more slowly, not because the economy has grown much faster. This makes the situation vulnerable. In contrast, Odisha’s much stronger position reflects lower debt build-up over time.

XII. An Economy That Keeps Falling Behind

The final chart shifts focus to the economy itself, which underpins the State’s fiscal position. Kerala’s GSDP growth has been lower than the national average in most of the years studied, with only one exception. The gaps have been especially large in certain periods. Growth slowed sharply to 0.90% in 2019–20 compared to 3.87% nationally. The contraction during 2020–21 was deeper than the national fall, and in 2023–24 Kerala grew at 6.73% while India grew at 9.19%. The last of these is particularly important because it came during a period of overall recovery, suggesting that the problem is not temporary.

Growth remains volatile, lacking the stability required for sound public finances. This fragility stems from deep structural issues. Remittances and consumption-led services dominate the economy, while manufacturing contributes barely 10% of output. High unemployment among educated youth and an ageing population further constrain the tax base. Kerala consequently struggles to translate its human development success into sustainable economic growth, leaving the budget permanently under strain.

Source: RBI State Finances publications, NITI Aayog Fiscal Health Index methodology (adapted). Index values on a 0-100 scale. Post-pandemic scores (2020-21 onwards) should be read alongside underlying ratio values. 2024-25 values are Budget Estimates.

XII. Conclusion: The Revenue-Rigidity Trap And The Limits Of Incremental Reform

Kerala’s fiscal stress is a chronic structural failure rooted in a fundamental mismatch between revenue and expenditure. Revenue growth remains capped by an economy over-reliant on services and remittances, while inflexible spending on salaries, pensions and public provision programmes continues to climb. This gap is exacerbated by the labour market. Despite high literacy, graduate unemployment is rampant, driving skilled workers abroad and hollowing out the tax base. Consequently, the state fails to translate social development into sustainable economic gains.

These dynamics have fuelled a debt spiral. Borrowing regularly covers daily operational costs, leaving interest payments to consume a significant portion of revenue. Off-budget liabilities further intensify this pressure. With investment in growth-supporting infrastructure sidelined, the State is trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle where high debt stifles the very fiscal space needed for recovery. Reversing this requires Kerala to raise its capital outlay from 1.29% of GSDP closer to the national average of 2.63%, reduce its interest burden from ~20% of revenue receipts to below 15%, and diversify beyond a services-and-remittances economy where manufacturing contributes barely 10% of the output, and has no credible path back.

Also, please consider subscribing to NFPRC Foundation’s focused centres covering latest economic, policy and administrative developments -

Centre for Law, Policy and Governance - Link

Centre for Accelerating India’s Growth - Link

Centre for Studies in Indian Social Systems - Link

NFPRC Foundation - Link

Data Sources and References

1. Comptroller and Auditor General of India. (2025). State Finances Audit Report for the Year 2023-24, Government of Kerala (Report No. 3 of 2025).

2. Reserve Bank of India. State Finances: A Study of Budgets, multiple years. RBI Publications.

3. NITI Aayog. Fiscal Health Index 2025. Government of India.

4. NITI Aayog. (2026). Export Preparedness Index 2024.

5. Mallick, H., Parameswaran, M., and Veeramani, C. (2025). Analysis of the Finances of the State of Kerala. Centre for Development Studies; 16th Finance Commission Studies.

6. Government of Kerala. (2025). Medium-Term Fiscal Policy Framework 2025-26. Budget Documents.

7. Fincom India. (2025). Tax buoyancy analysis, Kerala. 16th Finance Commission Study.

8. The Hindu. (2025). Kerala paradox: 100% literacy but 42% graduate unemployment.

9. International Institute of Migration and Development. (2024). Kerala Migration Survey 2023.

10. PRS Legislative Research. (2025). State of State Finances 2025.