Services sector has been hailed as the new driver of the Indian growth story ever since it has emerged as the largest sector of the economy. Many studies assert that services sector has grown faster than the secondary sector since independence and as a consequence emerged as the largest sector of the economy.The objective of this study is to examine whether or not the services sector grew faster than the secondary sector since independence. The analysis of the GDP data series over the 1950-51 to 2012-13 period brought out some illuminating conclusions. Till the mid nineties, the secondary sector was the fastest growing sector of the economy and not the services sector. So the emergence of the services sector as the largest sector in terms of GDP share in mid eighties cannot be explained by its faster growth than secondary sector since independence ; rather it is explained by its initial big size in the early fifties . Though the secondary sector share was growing at a higher rate during this period but due to its initial small size its gains could not make it the largest . It is only in the mid nineties that the services sector surpassed the secondary sector in the rate of growth. In the last decade the growth in the share of services sector in GDP has stagnated and this should now be a matter of some concern to the our policy makers , especially  if services sector is  expected to be the leading engine of economic growth  in the coming years.

KEYWORDS: Growth, India, Secondary , Sectoral shares, Services Sector