Economy to slip on deficient monsoon, swine flu: Economists

The deficient monsoon has further dampened the growth prospects of India's economy, already impacted by the global financial crisis and, now, the latest import -- swine flu.

The deficient monsoon has further dampened the growth prospects of India's economy, already impacted by the global financial crisis and, now, the latest import -- swine flu.

HT Image

"Deficient monsoon is a crisis and the government recognises it. The GDP growth can be impacted by one percentage point. It will be 5.5 to 5.7 per cent (in the current fiscal)," HDFC Bank chief economist Abheek Barua said.

The Indian economy grew by 6.7 per cent in 2008-09.

Economists are concerned over the state of monsoon in the country. While some are still hopeful of the rains to come, most of them prefer keeping their fingers crossed over the next few weeks. Further, to add to the problems, the country is now grappling with pandemic swine flu.

"A continuation of status quo...will lead to drought/severe drought year in 2009. Performance of monsoon in the next few weeks will be very critical," Crisil principal economist DK Joshi said.

Joshi, too, now sees a downward bias to India's GDP projection by the rating agency, which stands at 6 per cent to 6.5 per cent. "This will definitely shave off some part of the GDP," he said.

Meanwhile, KPMG India associate director Parul Soni said, "Though there are no India-specific estimates as of now, it (swine flu) will surely affect tourism, hospitality, aviation, BPOs and other people-centric companies as they have frequent travellers," Soni said.