Maharashtra Accounts for 14 Per Cent of India's GDP, the Largest Share of Any State, and Its Legislature Meets in Both Mumbai and Nagpur

Maharashtra’s economy was worth Rs 46,22,138 crore (Rs 46.2 lakh crore) in 2024-25, which is 14.0 per cent of India’s nominal GDP and the largest share of any state, according to the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2025-26. Tamil Nadu came next at 9.4 per cent and Uttar Pradesh at 9.0 per cent. GSDP, short for gross state domestic product, is the value of everything a state produces in a year, and the survey puts Maharashtra’s at Rs 51,00,597 crore for 2025-26, a rise of 7.9 per cent against 7.4 per cent for India.

The state covers 3.08 lakh square kilometres, is third in India by area and second by population, and took its present form on 1 May 1960. The 2011 Census counted 11.24 crore people, 45.2 per cent of them in towns, with a literacy rate of 82.3 per cent and 929 women for every 1,000 men.

How Maharashtra came to exist

Two Acts of Parliament, four years apart, drew Maharashtra’s borders. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which took effect on 1 November 1956, formed a new State of Bombay from the old Bombay State plus Saurashtra and Kutch, Marathwada districts from Hyderabad State (among them Aurangabad, Parbhani, Bhir, Osmanabad and Nanded) and eight Vidarbha districts from Madhya Pradesh, among them Nagpur, Amravati and Wardha. Marathi-speaking and Gujarati-speaking regions now sat in one state.

The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (United Maharashtra Committee) was formed at a Pune meeting in February 1956 to press for a Marathi-speaking state with Bombay as its capital, Swarajya’s 2018 history records. Police had fired on demonstrators in Bombay on 21 November 1955, at the spot now called Hutatma Chowk, or Martyrs’ Square.

Parliament settled it under Article 3 of the Constitution, which lets it form new states. The Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960 set 1 May 1960 as the appointed day, created Gujarat, and renamed the residuary State of Bombay as Maharashtra, with Bombay city inside it. The Act gave Maharashtra 264 Assembly seats and Gujarat 132.

One claim from that era is still open. Maharashtra asked the Supreme Court in 2004 to move Marathi-speaking border areas, including Belagavi, from Karnataka. A commission under Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan favoured Karnataka’s side while recommending some village transfers each way, and ETV Bharat’s November 2022 explainer says Karnataka relies on Article 3 to argue that the reorganisation cannot be reopened. None of the sources opened for this article reports a judgment.

How the state is governed

The Second Schedule of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 gives the Legislative Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) 288 seats, of which 29 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 25 for Scheduled Tribes. The 15th Assembly, elected for 2024 to 2029, had 286 sitting members, 22 of them women, the Economic Survey says.

Maharashtra also has a second chamber, the Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad). The Third Schedule allots it 78 seats, and the Legislature Secretariat’s 2015 paper gives the split: 30 elected by MLAs, 22 by local bodies, 7 by graduates, 7 by teachers and 12 nominated by the Governor. Its history reaches back to the Government of India Act, 1935, which gave Bombay two chambers. The Survey counts 55 sitting members on 1 January 2026. Which Indian states have a second house explains how councils work.

In Parliament the state has 48 Lok Sabha seats, second only to Uttar Pradesh’s 80, and 19 Rajya Sabha seats under the Constitution’s Fourth Schedule. It is divided into 36 districts (it had 26 in 1960-61), 355 talukas and six revenue divisions.

The Bombay High Court, whose principal seat is in Mumbai, has benches at Nagpur and Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) and one at Panaji in Goa. The Chief Justice named Kolhapur a sitting place for judges from 18 August 2025, under section 51(3) of the 1956 Act, and LiveLaw reported that it was likely to serve six western districts. The official language is Marathi. Section 1A of the Maharashtra Official Languages Act, 1964 states that the official language of the state shall be Marathi, and an Act first published on 21 August 2015 added it.

From village councils to 29 city corporations

The Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 came into effect on 1 May 1962 and built three tiers: a Zilla Parishad (district council), a Panchayat Samiti (block council) and a Gram Panchayat (village council).

On 1 January 2026, State Election Commission figures in the Survey counted 34 Zilla Parishads, 351 Panchayat Samitis, 27,829 Gram Panchayats, 29 municipal corporations, 247 municipal councils and 147 Nagar Panchayats. Article 243Q defines the last as councils for an area moving from rural to urban. Together they hold 2,54,271 seats, 1,40,626 of them reserved for women, and a 2011 amendment reserves half the seats in panchayat bodies for women.

Mumbai Metropolitan Region covers 6,328 square kilometres under nine municipal corporations. The Survey notes that elections for 20 Zilla Parishads and their Panchayat Samitis were to follow a Supreme Court order. How the 73rd and 74th Amendments and quota rulings shape those polls is in how panchayats and municipalities work.

What the economy is made of

Services produced 63.1 per cent of the state’s gross value added in 2024-25, industry 25.7 per cent and agriculture 11.2 per cent. In 2011-12 the shares were 51.1, 35.8 and 13.1 per cent. Per-capita state income was Rs 3,17,801 in 2024-25 against Rs 2,05,324 for India, and the 2025-26 estimate is Rs 3,47,903 against Rs 2,19,575.

Mumbai is the state capital and the home of the Bombay Stock Exchange, which the Survey calls Asia’s oldest. Foreign equity inflows recorded for Maharashtra between October 2019 and March 2025 were Rs 6,97,304 crore of India’s Rs 22,08,578 crore, which the Survey puts at 31 per cent. Its exports in 2024-25 were Rs 5,57,270 crore, 15.0 per cent of India’s, and Jawaharlal Nehru Port handled 921.15 lakh tonnes of cargo.

The Samruddhi Mahamarg, an eight-lane expressway of 701 km between Mumbai and Nagpur, was opened end to end on 5 June 2025 when its last 76 km stretch, from Igatpuri to Amane, began carrying traffic. PTI reported a drive of about 8 hours against 18 by the old route.

What the Constitution and history add

Article 371(2) lets the President give the Governor a special responsibility for separate development boards for Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra, for fair spending across them, and for fair access to technical education and state jobs. Each board’s report goes to the Assembly every year. A Presidential order of 9 March 1994 directed the boards, and the Governor’s Secretariat records that they were constituted on 25 June 1994. The Hitavada reported that their term, extended to 30 April 2020, ended that day without a further order. The Article 371 explainer sets out the text for all the states that have one.

Nagpur was capital of the British-era Nagpur province from 1854 to 1956, Nagpur Today records. The Nagpur Agreement of 28 September 1953, signed by leaders from western Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada, provided for a High Court sub-centre and a legislature session in Nagpur at least once a year. Section 41 of the 1960 Act put a permanent bench of at least three Bombay High Court judges there for nine Vidarbha districts.

In 2025 UNESCO inscribed 12 Maratha fortifications as a World Heritage property, 11 of them in Maharashtra, among them Raigad, Rajgad, Pratapgad, Panhala, Shivneri and Sindhudurg. Shivaji Maharaj tells the story of the ruler behind them.

What comes next

The 16th Finance Commission fixed Maharashtra’s share of central taxes at 6.441 per cent for 2026-27 to 2030-31. The 2026-27 budget projects GSDP at Rs 54,08,594 crore, a fiscal deficit of 2.8 per cent of GSDP, and outstanding liabilities of 20.4 per cent, up from 19.1 per cent in 2025-26, PRS Legislative Research reports. A bullet train line from Mumbai to Ahmedabad is covered in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. The population figures here are from the 2011 Census.

The legislature’s website lists the next winter session for 7 December 2026 at Vidhan Bhavan, Nagpur.