Hitting the bottom

The silver lining is that growth can only improve from here

The first advance estimates for economic growth in 2017-18, released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Friday, do not make a pretty picture. The CSO estimated that gross domestic product would grow at 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal year, making it the worst performance in the four years of the National Democratic Alliance government. It is just 10 basis points more than what India clocked in the last fiscal year (FY14) under the United Progressive Alliance regime. Nominal GDP growth is expected to slow to 9.5 per cent, compared to the 11.75 per cent assumed in the