Where India's savings go, and how its companies fare.

Each bar is what households added to one kind of asset during the year, net of what they took out. Provident funds and insurance grow steadily because contributions come out of salaries and premiums every month; mutual funds and shares swing with the market's mood. A bar below zero means households pulled money out.

The top line is what households put into financial assets, the bottom line what they borrowed, and the line between is the difference. The spike in 2020 is the lockdown: spending stopped, and money piled up in bank accounts. Each March quarter runs high because salaried people top up tax-saving deposits and insurance before the year ends.

Shares are of the year's new financial saving, so they swing when one asset has an unusual year. In the RBI's long table "shares and debentures" includes mutual fund units; the quarterly table in plate 4 separates the two. Claims on government (small savings, PPF) and currency make up most of the rest.

These are holdings, not the year's additions. Shares and mutual funds are at market value, so they rise and fall with prices even when nobody buys or sells; deposits and pension balances move only with new money and interest. Debt is shown at the foot: loans from banks and from finance companies.

Assets under management rise for two reasons: new money comes in, and the shares and bonds already held gain value. A fall, as in 2008-09 or March 2020, is usually prices, not people leaving. The plate below separates the new money.

Net inflow is money invested minus money withdrawn during the year. It is not the size of the fund house. A large house can show a small inflow in a year when its debt funds paid out, and a young house can show a large one.

Until 1987 the Unit Trust of India was the only mutual fund. Banks and insurers were allowed in from 1987, private companies from 1993. The deep dips are years when money fled: the UTI crisis of 2001, the global crisis of 2008, the debt fund losses of 2018-19.

The gap between the two lines is what it costs to bring gold into India: import duty, taxes, and the premium or discount local demand puts on it. The rupee price rises both when gold rises in dollars and when the rupee falls. Households hold gold as jewellery and coins; it counts as physical saving, not as a financial asset in plates 4 to 6.

These are issues to the public: initial and follow-on public offers, and rights issues to existing shareholders. Much larger sums are raised privately, through bonds placed with a few institutions and shares sold to qualified buyers; those are not in this table. A big year usually follows a rising stock market, when companies can sell shares at good prices.

Commercial paper is a company's promise to repay in a few weeks or months, sold mostly to mutual funds and banks; it is cheaper than a bank loan for a company with a good rating. Certificates of deposit are the same thing issued by banks, which use them when deposits do not keep pace with loans. Both are outstanding amounts, so they show how much short-term borrowing is alive at a time, not how much was raised.

Market capitalisation is the number of shares of every listed company times the day's price. It is a price, not money anyone has: it rises when prices rise even if not a single new share is sold. The two lines nearly coincide because almost every large company is listed on both exchanges.

Each step up the scale is ten times the one below. An option's notional value is far larger than the money that changes hands, the premium, so the comparison overstates how much is spent; it does show how the market's activity has moved from owning shares to betting on their short-term moves.

Each quarter the RBI takes every listed private company that has published results for that quarter and for the same quarter a year before, a few thousand of them (the count is in the data download), and compares the two. Sales growth is in nominal rupees, so higher prices raise it as much as higher volumes do. The deep dip and rebound are the 2020 lockdown and its base.

IT companies earn most of their revenue abroad, in dollars, so their growth follows American and European demand and the exchange rate. Manufacturing sales follow commodity prices closely: when oil and steel prices fall, refiners' and steelmakers' sales fall with them even if they sell as much.

Interest coverage is how many times over a company's operating earnings could pay its interest bill. Below about 1.5 a company is in trouble if business slows; above 5 it has room. The two lines share one scale but different units: times for coverage, per cent for the profit margin.

Some industries have only a few dozen listed companies, so one large company can move the figure. The number of companies is in the data download beside each industry. Read the spread as much as the extremes: when most dots sit right of zero, the slowdown or upturn is broad.

These studies cover far more companies than the listed set: in the latest year – public limited companies, – private limited companies and – foreign-owned ones. They come out a year or more after the year ends, so they confirm what the quarterly listed data suggested. Each point compares the same companies over two years; the companies change from one study to the next.

Debt to equity compares long-term borrowing with what shareholders have put in and left in the business. At 100% a company owes as much as its owners own. The Ind AS format counts some items differently from the old one, so the two stretches are drawn apart and a level in one is never compared with a level in the other.

Each April the year in progress becomes a new year, so both lines step from one target year to the next. The gap between them is the forecasters' view of whether growth will speed up or slow down. In 2020 the year in progress collapsed with the lockdown while the year ahead jumped on the expected rebound. The median is the middle answer of the panel, economists in banks, brokerages and research firms; the number answering varies from round to round. Every target year, round and statistic is in the data download.