India's GDP to contract by 7.7% in 2020-21: Govt's advance estimate

<p style="font-weight: 400;">India’s real GDP is set to contract by 7.7 per cent in this financial year owing to the Covid19 induced lockdown for over two months, the first advance estimates of GDP released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) noted. In 2019-20, India registered a growth rate of 4.2 per cent.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“Real GDP or GDP at Constant Prices (2011-12) in the year 2020-21 is likely to attain a level of Rs 134.40 lakh crore, as against the Provisional Estimate of GDP for the year 2019-20 of Rs 145.66 lakh crore, released on 31st May 2020,” the MoSPI release said.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Commenting on the advance GDP estimate for 2020-21 released today, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, said that “the advance estimate for the full year pegged the contraction in GDP at 7.7 per cent, showing a much shallower decline than earlier expected. Government spending did much of the heavy lifting in supporting growth along with a healthy agriculture performance which was aided by a good monsoon. In the last few months, there has been a strong economic recovery which will require to be nurtured especially in supporting the critical pillars of consumption to sustain the recovery momentum.”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">India recorded a 7.5 per cent contraction in the July-September quarter of the current financial year, signalling a sharp recovery in economic activities after registering a 23.9 per cent decline in the first quarter.</p>
India announced a stringent lockdown on March 25 to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Economic activities gradually opened up since May-end but several sectors remained under stress..