Govt hasn't yet scaled down growth projections: Pranab

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said the government has not taken any decision to scale down the growth projections for the current fiscal despite apprehensions of slowdown expressed by the Reserve Bank and global rating agency Fitch.

"We have not taken any decision yet...," Mukherjee said when asked if the government is planning to revise the GDP growth projections downwards.

The Finance Minister dismissed the talks on revision of growth projections for 2011-12 as "speculative".

Global ratings agency Fitch has also lowered India's growth forecast for India in 2011 to 7.7% from 8.3% previously citing high inflation as the main reason for its projection.

Although the government's Economic Survey had forecast a growth rate of 8.75-9.25% for the current fiscal, the Reserve Bank pegged it at 8%.

The central bank has continued to raise its key policy rates since March 2010 to tame inflation at the cost of growth.

Although the industrial output has been taking a beating, Mukherjee has been maintaining that the country would record a growth rate of 8.5% in the current fiscal, the same as during 2010-11.

The high interest rate regime had seen the industrial production growth rate moderating to 6.3% in April 2011 compared to an over 16% growth in the year-ago period.

The growth of eight core infrastructure industries, having a weightage of about 38% in industrial production, also slowed down to 5.3% in May against 7.4% in the same period a year ago.

The moderation in core sector growth is likely to have impact on May's IIP figures as well. IIP numbers would be released next week.