Growth should have been back at 9%: Kaushik Basu

With oil prices so low, India’s economic growth should have been back at over nine per cent, former chief economist at the World Bank, Kaushik Basu, said on Sunday, expressing disappointment at the 6.3 per cent GDP expansion in the September quarter. “India’s growth rate is now 6.3 per cent. It had reached a rate of 9.5 per cent from 2005-2008,” Basu, who was also chief economic advisor during the UPA government, said in a tweet. “This massive slowdown needs to be properly diagnosed,” he added. The GDP growth in the second quarter of 2017-18 was 6.3 per cent, compared to 5.7 per cent in the AprilJune period — the lowest growth rate since the Modi government took office. PTI<