India Clocks Worst Quarterly GDP in Decades

In a major setback, India's quarterly GDP saw its worst slump in decades.

The GDP for the April-June period contracted by 23.9%, even worse than what many economists had predicted keeping in mind the pre-COVID sluggish economy of the country and the unprecedented problems brought about by the pandemic.

The contraction comes against a growth of 3.1% in the preceding quarter, that is to say, January-March.

Talking about crucial parameters of the Indian economy, several significant industries including manufacturing, construction, hotel and trade have shown severe contraction.

While manufacturing sector witnessed a decline of 39.3% , mining and construction nosedived by 23.3% and 50% respectively. Trade and Hospital sector saw a negative growth of 47%.

However, commenting on the slump, Chief Economic Adviser was reported by media as saying, "The number is on expected lines, the global economy has taken a hit, India is not isolated. India is seeing a V-shaped recovery, agriculture has seen an uptick and it will continue to do so."

Highlighting that contraction faced by United Kingdom, he further said, "United Kingdom's lockdown was less stringent than India. If you use the Oxford University's index, India's lockdown was 15 per cent more stringent than that of UK and it is a country which has the same economic size as India, there was a contraction of 22 per cent in UK's economy, given the high intensity of lockdown here, the number is on expected lines."