What will be India's growth this fiscal?

Rate of India's economic growth has always been a hot topic of discussion among economists and analysts.

Industry bodies, rating agencies and international organisations present projections of India's growth at regular intervals.

What will be the actual growth rate of India this fiscal?

Let's take a look at various estimates:

Indian economy is expected to grow marginally higher at 7.3 per cent during the year compared with 7.2 per cent in 2014 and interest rate cuts will buttress private sector spending, said a group company of global rating agency Moody's on March 17.

"Our tracking model suggests that first quarter GDP growth is tracking around 7.3 per cent, a slowdown from prior quarters.

"But we expect this softness will prove temporary with improving domestic demand to help India’s GDP grow 7.3 per cent for all of 2015," Moody’s Analytics said in a study.

Judging by the latest data on investment flows, foreign investors are increasingly ebullient about India's growth prospects.  

Foreign direct investment rose to $41.2 billion (about Rs 2.6 lakh crore) during 2014-15 (up to February 2015, the financial year's 11th month), up 31 per cent over the same period the previous year, shows Reserve Bank of India data.  

This is the third highest inflow ever in any one year, during the first 11 months.  

Other indicators also suggest economic activities are gaining momentum.

Prior to this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that India has the potential to make nine to 10 per cent growth rate ‘a new normal’.

The finance minister said this on April 16 while asserting that high growth was essential to meet the challenges posed by the country's burgeoning young population.

"India has the potential to make nine to ten per cent its new normal in the years to come," Jaitley said in his keynote address at the day-long conference 'Deepening the US-India Commercial Partnership: The First Year of the Modi Government'.

Jaitley's speech must have drawn inspiration from what the International Monetary Fund had to say recently about the growth of Indian economy.

Terming it a 'bright spot' on the global economic landscape, IMF raised its growth forecast for the current fiscal to 7.2 per cent.

It, however, called for steps to revitalise the investment cycle and accelerate structural reforms in the country.

In its annual assessment report for the country, the IMF also said India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing big emerging market economies and the growth rate would further accelerate to 7.5 per cent in the next fiscal, 2015-16.

The World Bank's assessment has come close to the IMF's as it has predicted a gross domestic product growth rate of 8 per cent for India by 2017.

A strong expansion in the country, coupled with favourable oil prices, would accelerate the economic growth in South Asia, it had said.

In India, GDP growth is expected to accelerate to 7.5 per cent in fiscal year 2015/16.

It could reach 8 per cent in FY 2017/18, on the back of significant acceleration of investment growth to 12 per cent during FY 2016-FY 2018, the bank said in its semi-annual report.

The country is attempting to shift from consumption to investment-led growth, at a time when China is undergoing the opposite transition, it said.

The Asian Development Bank was a bit more optimistic when it projected India's growth rate to surpass China and improve to 7.8 per cent in next fiscal and further to 8.2 per cent in 2016-17.

India's growth and investor confidence will improve on the back of government's structural reform agenda and improved external demand, the Asian Development Outlook, an annual publication of the ADB, said.

It forecast that India's growth will improve from 7.4 per cent in current fiscal to 7.8 per cent in 2015-16 and further to 8.2 per cent in 2016-17.