India’s economic growth fell to a decade low of 5 per cent at the end of 2012-13 fiscal year, giving no relief to the UPA government ahead of the general elections scheduled for next year. Low investment, high inflation, fall of domestic currency in international market could be the reasons behind the slowest expansion in past ten years.
After few economic reforms measures announced by the government last year, the analysts thought that the country’s economy will take a new turn. However, nothing did happen. The business activity is sluggish and inflation is still high.
According to the data from the statistics ministry, country’s economy grew by 4.8 per cent in the January-March quarter, slightly higher than previous quarter, which recorded 4.7 per cent growth, the lowest in 15 quarters.
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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had earlier lowered its projection of India’s GDP to 5.3% in 2013 from 5.9%.
The government data showed that the manufacturing sector grew an annual 2.6 per cent in the March quarter. The farm sector expanded 1.4 per cent; mining sector grew an annual 3.1 per cent. The services sector grew an annual 6.6 per cent in the March quarter.
However, annual capital investment growth fell to 3.5 per cent in the March quarter from 4.5 per cent.
The slowest expansion in most of the sectors has spoiled the image of the government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress party, which faced heats from political pundits and opposition parties for a number of corruptions and scandals.