India’s economic growth rate in the current financial year has been estimated at 4.9 per cent, a faster pace than in the previous year, mainly on an improved performance in the agriculture and allied sectors.

“The growth in GDP during 2013-14 is estimated at 4.9 per cent as compared to the growth rate of 4.5 per cent in 2012-13,” according to advanced estimates released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The CSO had lowered growth for 2012-13 to 4.5 per cent in its revised estimates from an earlier provisional forecast of 5 per cent.

For 2013-14, the CSO has projected a growth rate of 4.6 per cent in agriculture and allied sectors, up from 1.4 per cent a year earlier.

Manufacturing, however, is expected to register a contraction of 0.2 per cent in this financial year compared with growth of 1.1 per cent in the previous year.

The latest estimate of 4.9 per cent for 2013-14 implies that the pace of economic expansion improved in the second half, given that GDP grew 4.6 per cent in the April-September period.

According to the advance estimates, the services sector, including finance, insurance, real estate and business services sectors, is likely to grow 11.2 per cent this year compared with 10.9 per cent in 2012-13.

Mining and quarrying is likely to contract 1.9 per cent, compared with a 2.2 per cent decline in production a year ago.

Growth in construction is likely to improve to 1.7 per cent from 1.1 per cent in 2012-13.

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