Budget 2022: Real GDP to grow at around 9.5% in FY22, says report

New Delhi: India`s real GDP is expected to grow at around 9.5 per cent in 2021-22 on a year-on-year (YoY), an SBI Ecowrap report said on Saturday.

The report comes a day after the National Statistical Office (NSO) released the First Advance Estimates of National Income for financial year 2021-22.

Accordingly, the estimates had said that India`s economy is expected to clock a growth of 9.2 per cent in terms of real GDP for FY22.

The NSO data had indicated that Real GDP` or `GDP at Constant Prices` (2011-12) in the year 2021-22 rose to Rs 147.54 lakh crore from Rs 135.13 lakh crore, the `Provisional Estimate of GDP` for the year 2020-21.

The Ecowrap report said: "We believe that NSO`s estimate is on the conservative side, as the calculated GDP growth for H2FY22 for construction comes at (-) 0.9 per centa Services is at a mere 2 per cent for H2FY22.

"We still believe that real GDP will grow at around 9.5 per cent in FY22. Meanwhile, this estimate however has a shelf-life of only two months and is only used as an input for budget arithmetic."

Besides, the report said that the NSO will release the first revised estimate of FY19, FY20 and FY21 on 31 Jan`21.

"We believe that for FY22 the figures would be revised again in February`21 and May`21."

As per the report, going forward, even if the rising Covid infections could impact mobility, yet economic activity is not expected to get affected much.

"Cases have been rising significantly in India as well as across the globe. However, studies so far reveal that the current Omicron variant is less severe than the Delta variant. Data also substantiates this fact," the report said.

"While number of new cases increased from 1.3 crore in October`21 to almost double to 2.5 crore in December`21 the number of deaths remained constant (just 2,200 more deaths occurred in Dec as compared to Oct)."

In addition, the report said that taking into account the revised GDP figures, "even if we consider the additional spending announced by the government in early Dec`21 fiscal deficit of the government still comes at Rs 15.88 lakh crore or 6.8 per cent of the GDP".

"For FY23, the fiscal consolidation should remain limited to 30-40 bps from the current fiscal."