'HINDU RATE OF GROWTH': SBI rejects Rajan's remarks, calls it 'ill-conceived & biased'

‘Interpretations of GDP growth based on noisy quarterly numbers is agame of smoke and mirror, says the SBI report Ecowrap’

NEW DELHI: An SBI research report on Tuesday dismissed arguments that India is dangerously close to Hindu rate of growth saying such statements are "ill-conceived, biased and premature" in the wake of the recent GDP numbers and the available data on savings and investments.

"Interpretations of GDP growth based on noisy quarterly numbers is a game of smoke and mirror," said the SBI report 'Ecowrap.

The report comes within days of former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan saying that India is "dangerously close to the Hindu rate of growth in view of subdued private sector investment, high interest rates and slowing global growth.

Rajan said that sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying.

Hindu rate of growth is a term describing low Indian economic growth rates from the 1950s to the 1980s, which averaged 3.5 per cent. The term was coined by Raj Krishna, an Indian economist, in 1978 to describe the slow growth "India's quarterly Y-o-Y GDP growth has been in a declining trend in FY23 sequentially, prompting arguments that India's growth is reminiscent of a pre - 1980 Raj Krishna coined growth rate," the report said.