Here's how Covid-19 has made predicting India's GDP growth even harder

The coronavirus pandemic has made the job of predicting India’s economic growth -- already a fraught process in normal times -- even harder.

Economists are bracing for possible big swings in the quarterly gross domestic product data scheduled for release on Aug. 31 and significant revisions going forward. The statistics office suspended field surveys for several months after India went into lockdown in March, resulting in substantial data gaps.

Forecasts for GDP in the quarter through June range from a contraction of 15% to a decline of 25.9%, with a median estimate of -19.2% -- representing the worst performance since