The economy is expected to grow by a healthy 8.1 per cent in the current fiscal driven by anticipated 4 per cent expansion in the farm sector and good showing by industry and services, the leading economic think-tank NCAER said here today.
"We project an 8.1 per cent GDP growth this fiscal. The one big change is in agriculture production which is likely to see a positive growth of around 4 per cent this year," the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) senior research counsellor Shashanka Bhide said.
For the past fiscal, the agency had projected a negative growth of 1.5 per cent for the agriculture sector, Bhide said, adding "for this year, we are projecting an agriculture growth at around 4 per cent. And that will be a big contribution to the change in the overall growth numbers."
The think-tank pegged inflation at around 6.6 per cent during the fiscal which may start receding from the second half of the fiscal. Bhide said he expects the average rate of inflation to be in the range of 6.6 per cent for the full year.
"We project an average rate of inflation for the year at 6.6 per cent for WPI. We are of the view that the inflation rate will decline in the second half of this fiscal, primarily because of the monsoon effect. Primary article prices would start coming down. I think growth will also be there because of more stable price scenario."
Industry and services sectors are also to contribute healthily to this fiscal, he said, adding, "we expect both to grow 8.5-9 per cent," Bhide said.