The Indian economy has recovered 'handsomely' from the pandemic-induced disruptions, stated former Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said, while expressing hope that the recovery will be sustained and the growth rate of 7 to 8 per cent will be restored.
Panagariya suggested that the government must now signal its intention to wind down fiscal deficit by reducing it by half-to-one percentage point in 2022-23.
While an advanced estimate by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) places India's GDP growth in 2021-22, at 9.2 per cent, Panagariya added this is higher than any other country this past year and the recovery has also been across-the-board.
Panagariya further said that the dominant view among epidemiologists is that with a large proportion of the population now having antibodies due to past infections from different variants of the virus or vaccination, there is now a high chance that the epidemic is about to enter the endemic phase.
(With inputs from PTI)
