Growth decline due to intense lockdown; V-shaped recovery in some sectors: CEA Subramanian

Image courtesy: PTI

New Delhi: Attributing the 23.9 percent contraction in GDP in April-June to the coronavirus lockdown, Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian on Monday said the country will witness a better performance in the subsequent quarters, aided by a 'V-shaped' recovery in various sectors.

He said indicators like rail freight traffic and electricity consumption are pointing to a recovery in economic activity. "Given the intensity of the lockdown...Higher intensity, this (growth number) is actually along expected lines. What is important is that India is experiencing a V-shaped recovery after the unlock has been announced," he told PTI.

Citing some examples, he said railway freight traffic, which is often a good indicator of economic activity, has reached 95 percent of the level seen in July last year and was 6 percent higher in the first 26 days of August, compared to the same time last year.

Power consumption is just 1.9 percent lower than last year, he said. "E-way bills capture interstate trade, which does get affected by local lockdowns, and yet the e-way bills are at 99.8 percent in August so far," he said.

Talking about the eight core infrastructure sectors, he said core sector output declined by 38 per cent in April, but since then the rate of contraction has come down to 22 percent in May, 13 percent in June, and 9.6 percent in July.

"Overall, there is clearly a V-shaped recovery. One noteworthy point is that the agriculture sector is the one sector that has grown at 3.4 percent despite the lockdown that was in Q1....(this) is reflective of the several reform measures that the government has announced, like the APMC reforms and Essential Commodities Act etc," he said.

This is also reflected in rural inflation now being higher than urban inflation, he added. Hit by the COVID-19 crisis, India's GDP shrank by the steepest ever 23.9 percent in April-June, as against a growth of 5.2 percent in the same quarter of the last fiscal, as per data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

"This decline is expected given the lockdown globally that happened and India is definitely experiencing a V-shaped recovery. So, we should expect better performance in the subsequent quarters," Subramanian emphasised.

Comparing the contraction with the UK economy, the CEA said India's lockdown was more intense than that in the UK, which witnessed 22 percent decline in the April-June quarter.

Quoting the World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund, he said it has highlighted that GDP per capita would decrease the highest since 1870. This is once in one-and-a-half century event, which is what India is going through as well, he said.

As per the NSO data, the construction sector GVA contracted by a whopping 50.3 percent from 5.2 percent expansion earlier. The mining sector output declined at 23.3 percent, as against a growth of 4.7 percent a year ago.

Electricity, gas, water supply, and other utility services segment too shrank by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2020-21, against 8.8 percent growth a year ago.

Similarly, trade, hotel, transport, communication, and services related to broadcasting declined 47 percent in the first quarter from 3.5 percent growth earlier.