New Delhi: Rajiv Kumar Vice Chairman of National Institution Of Transforming India or NITI Aayog said that with India’s story remaining “very strong”, the economy will register double-digit growth in the current fiscal and the disinvestment climate also looks better.

As far as the 1st and 2nd wave of COVID 19 has taught, the country is fully prepared to fight against the 3rd wave of COVID in case.

“We are now hopefully getting past the (COVID-19) pandemic, and the economic activities will be strengthened as we get into the second half of this (fiscal )year given what I have seen for example various indicators, including the mobility indicators,” Kumar told in an interview.

Due to the pandemic, the Indian economy has been adversely impacted and the recovery has been relatively sluggish in the wake of the second COVID wave.

Against this backdrop, the NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman excluded confidence that the economic recovery will be “very strong”. Those agencies or organizations that have revised their GDP estimates downwards for this fiscal may have to revise them upwards again.

“Because, I expect India’s GDP growth this (fiscal) year would be in double digits,”: NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman. The economy contracted by 7.3 percent in the financial year ended March 31, 2021.

Among rating agencies, S&P Global Ratings has cut India's growth forecast for the current fiscal to 9.5 percent from 11 percent earlier, while Fitch Ratings has slashed the projection to 10 percent from 12.8 percent estimated earlier. The downward revisions were mainly due to slowing recovery post-second COVID-19 wave.

Indicating the possibility of a strong rebound, the Reserve Bank has pegged economic growth at 9.5 percent in the current fiscal that ends on March 31, 2022.

Asked when private investments will pick up, Kumar said that significant investment in capacity expansion is happening in some sectors like steel, cement, and real estate.