After two consecutive quarters of contraction, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the October-December 2020 quarter (Q3) grew by 0.4 per cent. The GDP for the entire financial year 2020-21 (FY21) is seen contracting by (-)8 per cent, according to the second advanced and quarterly estimates of GDP released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Friday. In its first advanced estimate released last month, the government had estimated the GDP in FY21 to contract by 7.7 per cent.

The government also revised its GDP estimates in the previous two quarters. According to the latest data, the GDP contracted by 7.3 per cent in July-September 2020 quarter (Q2) instead of the previous estimate of (-)7.5 per cent and by a sharp 24.4 per cent in April-June 2020 quarter (Q1) instead of the earlier reported (-)23.9 per cent. The Q1 contraction is the worst in the history of the Indian economy, which happened due to a strict nationwide lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In the third quarter, the manufacturing sector, which had a contraction of 1.5 per cent in Q2, rose by 1.6 per cent. Apart from this, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector grew by 3.9 per cent in Q3. Agriculture has been the only sector to register growth in all the three quarters.

Among the other industries, contraction was seen in trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting at 7.7 per cent in Q3, better from a contraction of 15.3 per cent in Q2. The construction sector showed growth of 6.2 per cent, much better from a contraction of 7.2 per cent in Q2.