Growth rate to go up again like earlier: Rao Inderjit Singh

Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh on Thursday said 4.5 per cent growth rate in the September quarter was not "unprecedented" and hoped that the gross domestic product will improve.

"There is nothing to be worried about it. 4.5 per cent is the second quarter (September quarter) assessment. In the next quarter, we hope that it would go up again," said Singh, who is Minister of State for Statistics, Programme Implementation and Planning, in the Rajya Sabha.

He added that the growth rate has also gone down earlier also and then bounced back in the following quarter.

"Concerns have been raised about GDP, which has come down to 4.5 per cent in the second quarter," he said adding that "this is something which is not unprecedented".

In 2008-09 also, the GDP fell to 3.9 per cent (on the base year of 2004-05).

"Immediately after, in the next year, the GDP went up by 8.5 per cent. Our country has such resilience to overtake this 4.5 per cent GDP that has come into the second quarter," he said.

Quarter-wise, there has been precedents when one quarter has been low and then the next quarter, the GDP has bounced back and jumped up to a high number.

"In the second quarter of 2014-15, the GDP growth rate was 8.7 per cent and in the third quarter, it came down to 5.9 per cent and in the fourth quarter again jumped to 7.1 per cent," he said.

Similarly, in the first quarter of 2016-17, the growth was 9.4 per cent and further came down to 8.9 per cent and then went up again.