India GDP Live updates: Economic growth declined due to intense lockdown, says CEA K V Subramanian

Agriculture emerged to be the only sector to witness a positive growth of 3.4 per cent during the quarter. This can be attributed to increase in agricultural produce owing to good monsoon rains and targeted government spending.

"The 23.9 per cent contraction in the GDP figures of the country in the first quarter announced today by the NSO has not come as a surprise. As these three months witnessed a total lock-down and loss of business opportunities to control the Corona virus pandemic, stated Niranjan Hiranandani, president, ASSOCHAM. "We should not be getting disheartened by these numbers thought it is probably at the historic low levels. Going forward we are anticipating contractions - though a bit better in numbers - in the July-September quarter and the October-December quarter as well. However, in the quarters post that, we anticipate some amount of recovery to take place,” he added.

Data showed that manufacturing has already entered recession as the output fell 39.3% in June quarter after falling 1.4% in the previous quarter.

"Agriculture sector has grown by 3.4 per cent, which indicated that the reforms and measures taken place has shown results," the CEA told ET Now. And, consumption is mainly affected by the health sector due to Covid pandemic, he added.

"India is experiencing a V-shaped recovery and there are clear indicators signalling it," chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian told ET Now. He also mentioned that the "worst is really behind us."

"This kind of a decline was expected as there was a lockdown for roughly half of the quarter. Monday's infrastructure data showed the decline was less than 10% and with the exception of cement and steel, all other sectors have done reasonably well," Sujan Hajra, chief economist, Anand Rathi Secutities, Mumbai told news agency Reuters."Contraction of real GDP at 23.9% appears to be underestimated, as data collection efforts were hit by the pandemic. The NSO had to use substitutes and proxies to estimate the losses of informal sector. So there is a very high probability that this data will undergo several revisions in the future. But broader trends are clearly visible," Rupa Rege Nitsure, group chief economist, L&T Financial Holdings, Mumbai, told Reuters.