The Prime Minister's advisory panel today exuded confidence that the economy would expand by 8.2 per cent in the current fiscal, notwithstanding a slippage in growth in the April-June period.
“The growth rate (in April-June) is in line with the growth rate of 8.2 per cent for the year as a whole,” said Dr C. Rangarajan, while commenting on deceleration in economic growth to 7.7 per cent during the first quarter of the current fiscal.
The data released by the Government revealed that the economic growth during April-June 2011 slipped to its lowest level in the last one-and-half years, primarily due to poor performance of the manufacturing and the mining sectors.
“We believe that in the third and fourth quarters growth rate will be higher than the 7.7 per cent, which has been recorded in the first quarter,” he added.
As regards the agriculture sector, he said, growth rate would cross 3 per cent during the year.
The industrial growth rate, he added, was also likely to pick up in the second half of the year.