India's growth dips to 4.4 percent in first quarter

India's economic growth slumped to 4.4 percent in the first quarter of this fiscal, the worst in over four years, due to poor performance of the manufacturing and mining sectors, government data showed Friday.

This is the worst quarterly growth in India's gross domestic product (GDP) since January-March quarter of 2009, the year of the global financial crisis.

The manufacturing sector contracted 1.2 percent and mining output dropped 2.8 percent in the quarter ended June 30.

The growth of agriculture sector fell to 2.7 percent, while the services sector registered a healthy 9.4 percent growth in April-June quarter of the current financial year, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) here.

Quarterly GDP at factor cost at constant (2004-2005) prices for the first quarter of 2013-14 was estimated at Rs.13.71 lakh crore, as against Rs.13.14 lakh crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, showing a growth rate of 4.4 percent year-on-year, the CSO said.

The economy had expanded by 4.8 percent in the previous quarter and 5.4 percent during the corresponding quarter of last year.

"The GDP figures for first quarter clearly show that the economy continues to be in the throes of a slowdown. The concern becomes more acute when we see that at the present moment, there are no clear indications that the economy has bottomed out," said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general, Confederation of Indian Industry.

"The economy needs the undivided attention of policy makers," he said.