The CSO revised down previous years’ growth rates to 7.2 per cent for FY15, 6.6 per cent for FY14 and 5.6 per cent for FY13.
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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) pegged the advanced GDP estimate at 7.6 per cent for FY16, which is tad higher than Finance Ministry’s projection of 7-7.5 per cent and RBI’s estimate of 7.4 per cent.
However, India’s GDP growth slowed to 7.3 per cent in October-December, from the revised 7.7 per cent of the previous quarter.
Based on the advances estimates of GDP for FY2016 and the first three quarters of actual GDP data indicates that the GDP growth should be at 7.7% in Q4FY2016 for arriving at the forecast growth of 7.6% for FY2016.
The growth of mining and quarrying sector, electricity and power supply and other services is likely to witness deceleration during the current financial year.
The main change is that India now measures its economic growth at market prices to incorporate “gross value addition” in goods and services as well as indirect taxes.
Ritika Mankar, an economist at Ambit Capital, said: “The new GDP series and the information it is conveying, not just in terms of level but also in terms of the direction, seems counterintuitive…”
The wholesale price index (WPI), in respect of the groups food articles, manufactured products, electricity and all commodities, has risen by 3.0 per cent, (-) 1.3 per cent, 4.4 per cent and (-) 3.0 per cent, respectively, during April-December 2015-16.
India will release data on Monday showing it remains one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but economists are struggling to reconcile that rosy picture with ground realities like weak exports, investment, and flat corporate order books. “The focus should clearly be on introducing measures to further boost domestic investments and demand”, he added. The expected annual growth would be 6.8% faster than China growth posted in the same quarter. “The improvement expected in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors in the current fiscal is encouraging…we do hope to see a turnaround in near future”, Ficci said in a statement. “Underlying growth drivers need to be rekindled to place the economy durably on a higher growth trajectory”.
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The GVA for construction grew at 4 per cent in the quarter compared to 4.9 per cent in same period in 2014-15.
