NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said that India’s economic growth will cross 8 per cent during the current fiscal, on the back of good monsoon and pick up in manufacturing. Pangariya said that “India will cross eight per cent economic growth during the current fiscal and good monsoon will push farm sector growth to 4-5 per cent this year.”
Panagariya further added, the growth in last quarter of previous fiscal touched 7.9 percent because of uptick in manufacturing activity and improved performance of agriculture. As per the data released by the Central Statistics office, on individual basis growth of manufacturing and farm sector for fourth quarter was 9.3 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively. Besides, Indian economy clocked a five-year high growth rate of 7.6 per cent in 2015-16, mainly on account of good performance of these sectors.
The NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman also said that the economy will grow at a higher rate as revenues are increasing and inflation has entered the positive zone. After remaining in negative zone for 17 months, the WPI inflation turned positive in April this year, April WPI-based inflation was at 0.34 per cent and in March it was (-) 0.45 per cent while it stood at (-) 2.20 per cent in May last year. While, retail inflation too touched a 21-month high of 5.76 per cent in May mainly on rising prices of food items. Higher wholesale inflation rate indicates the rise in margins for the industry.