India has potential for 5 pc plus growth: Mayaram

India's Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram has said the country still has the potential for achieving a growth rate of more than five per cent this fiscal year, a day after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) drastically scaled down India's growth rate to a mere 3.8 per cent.

"India has generally surprised critics. I think at the end of the year you will see that we will surprise them again," Mayaram said.

"The fact is that one needs to look at hard numbers. We believe and we still believe that we have in the current fiscal, the potential of going beyond five per cent," he said.

Mayaram is currently in Washington to attend the annual plenary meeting of the IMF and the World Bank.

The Indian delegation to the meeting is being led by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who arrived on Wednesday evening.

In its latest World Economic Outlook report, released early this week, the IMF on Tuesday had said that India will grow only 3.8 per cent in the 2013-14 financial year against projected 5.6 per cent in its July forecast, a cut of 1.8 percentage points; which is said to be the steepest.