India has slightly over 990 thousand active registered companies according to the Minstry of Commerce's records. The oldest one still active is C L S Limited, whose registration dates back to 1862. According to the records, there have been just under 1.4 million companies registered in India. The number of companies registered before 1970 was a mere 36,897, and the numbers don't really start taking off until 1978.
The first chart below starts us off by looking at the number of companies registered in each year between 1970 and 2013, and how many of them are still active as of August 2014. The peak year for registrations was 2012 with 108,219 new companies entering the books. That is about half as many as South Africa according to World Bank's statistics. In order to see whether the ruling government has any impact on entrepreneurship, the chart also depicts the prime ministers and political parties that were in power during the 43-year span.
Move the mouse over the chart below to see the exact number of companies (on a touch-screen, touch on the chart).
