Hoping for the best

Optimistic growth figures will complicate Budget process

On Friday, the Central Statistics Office or CSO released its first Advance Estimates of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the ongoing financial year. It calculated that GDP growth in 2016-17 would be 7.1 per cent, down from 7.6 per cent in 2015-16. Growth will be boosted, in particular, according to the CSO, by a good showing from the agricultural sector. After two consecutive drought years, in which agriculture shrank by 0.2 per cent and then grew by only 1.2 per cent, the sector is projected to post a very healthy 4.2 per cent growth this year. The first