The Indian economy is estimated to grow at 5% in 2019-20 as against 6.8% in the previous fiscal, according to government data.
According to the first advance estimates of GDP numbers released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's CSO, growth for the current financial year is pegged at 5%. The latest data is in line with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) estimate.
The first advance estimate of FY20 gross value added (GVA) growth stood at 4.9%. The economic growth slowed to 4.5% in the second quarter of current fiscal as against 5% in the first quarter.
For 2018-19, the first advance estimates had pegged the GDP growth at 7.2% which was brought down to 7% in the second advance estimates and was further pared down to 6.8% in the actual number.
"The real GDP or GDP at constant prices (2011-12) in 2019-20 is likely to attain a level of Rs 147.79 lakh crore as against the provisional estimate of GDP for 2018-19 of Rs 140.78 lakh crore," according to an official statement.
"At the same time, the real GVA at basic prices is estimated to increase from Rs 129.07 lakh crore in 2018-19 to Rs 135.40 lakh crore in 2019-20. The estimated growth of real GVA in 2019-20 is 4.9% as against 6.6% in 2018-19," it added.
Besides, the per capita net national income during 2019-20 is estimated to be Rs 135,050, marking an increase of 6.8% as compared to Rs 126,406 during 2018-19 with the growth rate of 10%.
The decline has been mainly on account of deceleration in manufacturing sector growth, which is expected to come down to 2% in 2019-20 from 6.2% in the year-ago fiscal, as per the first advanced estimates of the national income released by National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday.
The deceleration was also witnessed in sectors like agriculture, construction and electricity, gas and water supply.
Whereas, some sector, including mining, public administration, and defence, showed minor improvement.
Earlier, according to official data released at the end of November 2019, the (GDP) for the second quarter of FY19-20 showed a growth rate of 4.5%.
Eight core industries output in October declined by 5.8%. In the previous quarter, India's economy had grown at 5% -- the slowest pace in over six years.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy had predicted, in 2015, that the economy was headed for a tailspin. He had said that a ‘major crash was inevitable’ in Indian economy.
Just two days before the November announcement however, Swamy told Huffington Post that "the real growth rate today" according to him was 1.5%.
"They are saying that it is coming down to 4.8%. I’m saying it is 1.5%,” he was quoted as saying by the publication.
Earlier in July last year, the Narendra Modi government’s former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian had said that India's economic growth rate has been overestimated by around 2.5 percentage points between 2011-12 and 2016-17 due to a change in the method of calculating GDP.
“Official estimates place annual average GDP growth between 2011-12 and 2016-17 at about 7%. We estimate that actual growth may have been about 4.5% with a 95% confidence interval of 3.5 - 5.5%,” he had said.
(With inputs from agencies)
