According to an ICMR-INDIAB study (Anjana et al., 2014), physical activity was assessed using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) in 14,227 individuals aged above 20 years across 4 parts of India – Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Chandigarh, representing the south, west, east, and north of India, respectively. In this study, of the 14,227 individuals studied, 54.4% (n = 7,737) were found to be inactive (Anjana et al., 2014). A more recent study analysed data of around 2 lakh individuals from the Niyantrita Madhumeha Bharata 2017 randomised cluster survey and reported that 20% of the sample were physically inactive (Podder et al., 2020).

References:

Anjana, R. M., Pradeepa, R., Das, A. K., Deepa, M., Bhansali, A., Joshi, S. R., … & Subashini, R. (2014). Physical activity and inactivity patterns in India–results from the ICMR-INDIAB study (Phase-1) [ICMR-INDIAB-5]. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-11-26

Podder, V., Nagarathna, R., Anand, A., Patil, S. S., Singh, A. K., & Nagendra, H. R. (2020). Physical activity patterns in India stratified by zones, age, region, BMI, and implications for COVID-19: a nationwide study. Annals of Neurosciences, 27(3-4), 193-203. https://doi.org/10.1177/0972753121998507