New Delhi: India grew fastest among major economies with GDP accelerating to 7.3 per cent in the second quarter (July-September period) due to good agriculture output.
However, this offered little comfort as there is a huge uncertainty as how Indian economy will fare in the third and subsequent quarters due to demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes announced on November 8. The-re is a consequence among economist that third quarter GDP will get hit.
However, estimates of impact vary from 0.50 per cent impact on GDP to two per cent in the FY 2016-17. Indian economy had grown by 7.1 per cent in the previous quarter and higher than China’s 6.7 percent.
In the second quarter the agriculture sector grew by 3.3 per cent against 1.8 per cent in the previous quarter. However, manufacturing slowed down to 7.1 per cent in the second quarter against 9.1 per cent in the previous quarter. The mining sector contracted by 1.5 per cent in the second quarter against fall of 0.4 per cent in the first quarter.
Chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian said that GDP growth numbers for the first half of the current fiscal have revealed a good performance but lot of unc-ertainty remains on the outlook for H2.
