Government To Release 2021-22 GDP Data Tomorrow Amid High Inflation, Geo-Political Tensions

Government will release the gross domestic product (GDP) growth data for the March quarter of 2021-22 as well as for the complete fiscal tomorrow on May 31, 2022.

Amid sky rocketing inflation as rising fuel prices and soaring edible oil rates have burnt a hole in the common man's daily budget, the growing geo-political tensions triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war have threatened to derail economies the world over and are expected to impact India's growth story too.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), which releases GDP data, had estimated that economy will grow at 8.9 per cent in 2021-22 compared to a contraction of 6.6 per cent seen in 2020-21.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected 9.5 per cent of GDP growth for 2021-22 and kept March quarter growth at 6.1 per cent.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that India's growth would be 9 per cent during 2021-22 while Fitch has kept it at 8.4 per cent.

RBI's projection of 6.1 per cent growth during March quarter of 2021-22 - if it manages to be anywhere near it - would be an improvement over the 5.4 per cent GDP growth which was seen in the third or December quarter of the said fiscal.

India's GDP had grown by 5.4 per cent in the December quarter of 2021-22, which was lower than 8.4 per cent growth seen in the September quarter. However, it was much higher than 0.5 per cent growth which was witnessed in the corresponding period (October-December) of 2020-21.

In the first quarter of 2021-22, economic growth had been a stupendous 20.1 per cent, which however was mainly due to the low base effect.

In its second advance estimates of national accounts, the National Statistical Office (NSO) had projected 8.9 per cent growth in 2021-22, which is lower than its first advance estimates released in January 2022.

At that time, NSO had projected 9.2 per cent growth for 2021-22 as against a contraction of 6.6 per cent in 2020-21.

However the December quarter growth was the fifth consecutive quarter when positive growth in GDP was seen.

The economy had grown by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2020-21, 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020-21, 20.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2021-22 and 8.4 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal.

In the first two quarters of 2020-21, the growth was -24.4 per cent and -7.4 per cent respectively, as the country was under complete lockdown due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic and all economic activities had come to a halt. 

Gradually after restrictions were lifted and the festival season related activities started from October 2020 onwards, the third and fourth quarters showed meagre but positive growth.