I anticipated this sort of ridiculous analogy in your reply and that is why i tried to explain why this number is important. The base is not 2 different economies, we are comparing the growth of people 2 different states keeping the base to their previous income under same economic conditions in the country. It is a very simple analogy if one tries to understand.
If I or any economist were to go by your standards no country, no economy in the world can ever be compared, fact is they do. So are those economists stupid or are Jatlanders being too smart?
It is well recognized by Economists that growing on larger scale is credible. And Growing at a rate of 9% on larger scale is incredible. Now don't say that its an ordinary growth!