New Delhi, Mar 1: India’s economic growth decelerated to 6.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2024-25, mainly due to poor performance by the manufacturing and mining sectors.The Indian economy recorded a growth of 6.2 per cent in the third quarter of the current fiscal (October-December 2024) against 9.5 per cent in the year-ago period, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Friday.
Indian economy grew at 5.6 per cent in the July-September quarter this fiscal.
The NSO, in its second advance estimate of national accounts, pegged the country’s growth at 6.5 per cent for 2024-25.
It had projected a growth of 6.4 per cent for the current fiscal in its first advance estimates released in January 2025.
The NSO also revised the GDP growth for 2023-24 to 9.2 per cent against the earlier estimate of 8.2 per cent.
Meanwhile, India will need to accelerate reforms to achieve an average annual growth rate of 7.8 per cent for becoming a high-income economy by 2047, a World Bank report said on Friday.
To achieve this goal India would require reforms in financial sector as well as in land and labour market, the World Bank said in its India Country Memorandum titled ‘Becoming a High-Income Economy in a generation’.
Recognizing India’s fast pace of growth averaging 6.3 per cent between 2000 and 2024, the report notes that India’s past achievements provide the foundation for its future ambitions.
“However, reaching the ambitious target of becoming a high-income economy by 2047 will not be possible in a business-as-usual scenario… for India to become a high-income economy by 2047, its GNI (gross national income) per capita would have to increase by nearly 8 times over the current levels; growth would have to accelerate further and to remain high over the next two decades, a feat that few countries have achieved.
“To meet this target, given the less conducive external environment, India would need to not only maintain ongoing initiatives but in fact expand and intensify reforms,” the World Bank report said.
In recent years, India has introduced a host of structural reforms to transform the country into a global manufacturing hub, to boost infrastructure, improve human capital, and leverage digitization, while at the same time bolstering macroeconomic stability.
“To reach high income by 2047, India’s growth rate needs to average 7.8 per cent, in real terms, over the coming decades… Only an ‘accelerated reforms’ package would put India on track to become high-income by 2047,” the report said.
World Bank India country director Auguste Tano Kouame said lessons from countries like Chile, Korea and Poland show how they have successfully made the transition from middle to high-income countries by deepening their integration into the global economy.