The government will release Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth figures for the full financial year for the 2021-22 quarter and tomorrow, 31 May 2022.

Amid soaring inflation, rising fuel prices and soaring cooking oil prices, ordinary people’s daily budgets are being emptied, and heightened geopolitical tensions from the Russia-Ukraine war threaten the global economy and are also expected to weigh on India’s growth.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), which releases GDP data, estimates the economy will grow by 8.9% in 2021-22 before contracting by 6.6% in 2020-21.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) forecasted GDP growth of 9.5% in 2021-22 and kept the March quarter growth at 6.1%. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts India’s growth to reach 9% in 2021-22, while Fitch has kept it at 8.4%.

The RBI’s forecast of 6.1% growth in the third quarter of 2021-22 – if it manages to come close to it – would improve GDP growth by 5.4% in the third or December quarter. India’s GDP grew by 5.4% in the December quarter of 2021-22, down from 8.4% in the September quarter. However, this is well above the 0.5% growth rate for the same period in 2020-21 (October-December).

The economy grew by a staggering 20.1% in the first quarter of 2021-22, mainly due to a low base effect. In its second national account, the National Statistics Office (NSO) forecast growth of 8.9% in 2021-22, down from the first forecast released in January 2022.

The NBS projected growth of 9.2% in 2021-22 and a contraction of 6.6% in 2020-21. However, the growth in the December quarter was the fifth consecutive quarter of positive GDP growth. The economy grew 0.5% in the third quarter of fiscal 2020-21, 1.6% in the fourth quarter of 2020-21, 20.1% in the first quarter of 2021-22, and 8.4% in the second quarter of the current fiscal year.

In the first two quarters of 2020-21, growth rates were -24.4% and -7.4%, respectively, as the country entered a complete lockdown due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, with all economic activity halted. Restrictions were gradually lifted from October 2020, and after the festival began, the third and fourth quarters showed a weak but positive growth trend.