Economic growth slows to 4.8 pc in Q4, falls to 10-year low for FY13

India's economic growth or gross domestic product (GDP) fell to a decade's low of 5 per cent for the 2012-13 financial year, even after recovering feebly in the fourth quarter ended March 31.

India's economic growth was at 6.2 per cent for the 2011-12 fiscal. The economy had grown at just 4 per cent in 2002-03.

Pulled down by poor performance of farm, manufacturing and mining sectors, growth slowed to 4.8 per cent in the fourth quarter, against 5.1 per cent in the corresponding period of 2011-12.

However, it was marginal recovery from the rate at which the economy grew in the third quarter of FY13 (4.7 per cent).

According to the data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) on Friday, India had registered a growth rate of 5.4 per cent in the first quarter and 5.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2012-13.

The manufacturing sector grew marginally by 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter, against 0.1 per cent growth in the same period of FY12. For the entire 2012-13 financial year, the sector grew by a meagre 1 per cent compared to 2.7 per cent in 2011-12.

Mining and quarrying sector contracted by 3.1 per cent during the fourth quarter, against a growth of 5.2 per cent in output in the same period of 2011-12. The contraction in mining sector remained unchanged at 0.6 per cent in 2012-13 over the previous financial year.

Farm sector output expanded by just 1.4 per cent in January-March this year, against 2 per cent in the same quarter of 2011-12. The agriculture sector also grew at a slower rate of just 1.9 per cent in 2012-13 compared to 3.6 per cent in 2011-12.

To arrest the growth slide, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had launched a series of measures from last September to encourage investment and control a high fiscal deficit.

However, fresh corruption scandals such as the posts-for-cash scam that saw the sacking of Pawan Bansal as railway minister and interference with CBI investigations into coalgate led to a belligerent Opposition disrupting Parliament and blocking all economic reforms.



"It is imperative that both the government and the RBI get their acts together," Jyotinder Kaur, an economist with HDFC Bank, who believes the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) should take action to get money flowing into the real economy, told MAIL TODAY. "The room for policy response is limited but it is not completely absent," she added.

The finance minister had earlier this week said the country should focus on ensuring the conditions for economic growth remain "intact".

"We will grow at a rate of 5 or 6 per cent regardless of what government does and what government does not do. What government and good governance can bring to the table, is more effective governance that raises the growth rate from 6 per cent to above 8 per cent or so", he had said.

With inputs from PTI