Chief Economic Advisor predicts over 6.8% GDP growth for FY26
V. Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India (file photo)
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BIJOY GHOSH
Buoyed by the higher consumption post GST and interest rate cuts, pick up in private capex and meaningfully higher foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, India’s Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran is comfortable in forecasting upwards of 6.8 per cent GDP growth in the current fiscal.
“I am now more comfortable looking at a number north of 6.8 per cent (GDP growth), my original number was at 6.3-6.8 per cent, and back in August we were all concerned about whether we could even go towards the lower end of the band,” the CEA said at a CNBC-TV 18 event.
“But now there is a lot of comfort in saying that it will be definitely north of 6.5 per cent, and I am more comfortable in saying even north of 6.8 per cent, but whether I will raise the estimate to 7 per cent, I would wait for Q2 numbers to come out,” he said. The CEA today said if India can strike a trade deal with the US, the GDP growth could be even higher. The US has imposed 50 per cent trade tariffs on India, among the highest globally.
Nageswaran said it is the right set of legal and regulatory frameworks that enables successes in some of the sectors. For example, removing the inverted duty structures, exempting primary and intermediary raw materials from customs duties has made the cost of production cheaper and more competitive.
“Those are all the important success stories we have heard from the electronic sector and so on. Therefore, making sure that in the process of boosting domestic production, there has to be a complementary goal of plugging ourselves into the global value chain, which is equally important…Different countries have been able to have different kinds of leverage with the US administration’s tariffs, and those were directly influenced by the amount of leverage they have,” the CEA said. He also cautioned that while AI can boost reach of education and healthcare sectors to remotest of corners, they also post near term risk of higher layoffs.
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy committee (MPC) last month revised FY26 projections from GDP growth and retail inflation to 6.8 per cent (6.5 per cent earlier) and 2.6 per cent (3.1 per cent), respectively. RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the growth outlook remained resilient, supported by domestic drivers, despite weak external demand. It is likely to get further support from a favourable monsoon, lower inflation, monetary easing and the salubrious impact of recent GST reforms.
Published on November 7, 2025
