New Delhi, June 29 -- The proposal that emerged from a recent Niti Aayog Governing Council meeting to develop district-level GDP estimates is both timely and important. For decades, India's development story has been told through national and state-level statistics. Yet the reality of India's growth journey is increasingly local.

The road to Viksit Bharat will ultimately be shaped not in New Delhi or state capitals, but across nearly 800 districts with vastly different economic structures, demographic profiles and development paths.

A robust district GDP framework can become a powerful tool of governance. It can identify growth engines, reveal emerging economic clusters, improve the targeting of public investments and strengthen account...