India to grow at over 7 pc in the current fiscal: PMEAC

New Delhi, Apr 17: Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) today said it expects the country's economy to grow at over seven per cent in the current fiscal as it has already started showing signs of recovery.
"Seven per cent plus is what my 2009-10 overall forecast is...I think it has already started recovering in my own assessment," PMEAC Chairman Suresh Tendulkar told on the sidelines of a conference on broadband here.

He further said it expects rebound in the economy after September as the worst was over.

"I have been maintaining that the worst is already over, (I expect) good recovery after September," Tendulkar added.

Asked if the contracting industrial production worried him, he said the revised industrial production numbers were higher than the provisional ones, so it did not bother him much.

Despite three stimulus packages announced by the government, the Indian economy grew by 5.3 per cent in the third quarter of the last fiscal, its lowest rate in over five years, against a whopping 8.9 per cent a year ago.

In the first nine months of last fiscal, the economy grew by 6.9 per cent. For whole of 2008-09, the advance estimates of Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) pegged the economic growth at 7.1 per cent, which seems a tough task in the wake of dismal industrial growth numbers. PTI