ECONOMY GROWTH @ 7.3 %

The Indian economy grew at 7.3 per cent in 2014-15 due to improvement in the performance of both services as well as manufacturing sectors. According to the data release by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) today, the economic growth was 6.9 per cent in 2013-14 as per the new series of national accounts with base year of 2011-12. The growth in 2014-15 was lower than the advance estimates of 7.4 per cent released in February. The fourth quarter (January-March) of last fiscal saw the economy grow at 7.5 per cent, better than 6.6 per cent recorded for the previous three months, October-December. The Gross Value Added (GVA), a new concept introduced by CSO to measure the economic activity, rose by 7.2 per cent in 2014-15 compared 6.6 per cent in the previous fiscal. The manufacturing sector GVA rose by 7.1 per cent during the year as against 5.3 per cent in 2013-14. Similarly, the output of electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services rose by 7.9 per cent as against 4.8 per cent a year ago. The construction activity too registered an increase of 4.8 per cent, up from 2.5 per cent a year ago. Financial, real estate and professional services also showed an improvement by registering a growth of 11.5 per cent as against 7.9 per cent in previous fiscal. However, the farm and allied sectors grew by a meagre 0.2 per cent compared to 3.7 per cent a year ago. The output of mining and quarrying sector too slipped to 2.4 per cent from 5.4 per cent a year ago.
he economic growth rate measured in terms of GVA in the January-March quarter improved to 6.1 per cent as against 5.3 per cent a year ago. The manufacturing sector recorded a growth rate of 8.4 per cent during the last quarter of last fiscal, up from 4.4 per cent a year ago. The services sector too witnessed marked improved during the quarter. However, agriculture and mining and quarrying sectors remained laggards in the January-March quarter. The data showed that farm output during the quarter declined by 1.4 per cent as compared to a growth of 4.4 per cent in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The output of mining and quarrying sector decelerated to 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal as compared to a growth of 11.5 per cent during the same period in 2013-14. It further said that per capita income at current prices during 2014-15 rose by 9.2 per cent to Rs 87,748 as against Rs 80,388 in the previous fiscal. It was Rs 64,316 in 2011-12 and Rs 71,593 in 2012-13.