Data | India's GDP was on a downward slope even before COVID-19 wreaked havoc
The HinduEven before the COVID-19 outbreak, which led to a shutdown of the economy and made way for the worst contraction of India's GDP in decades in the April-June quarter, the economy was already witnessing a slowdown. Decelerating GDP growth, significant decrease in industrial output, fall in tax revenues and a massive reduction in power demand were all recorded well before the impact of the lockdown was recorded. GDP growth GDP growth has been on a constant downward slope since Q4 FY17, and slowed to a 11-year-low of 3.1% in Q4 FY20. Click to remove AMP mode Industries affected Industrial activity had also taken a hit well before the pandemic set in, with the output of the eight core sectors and the index of industrial production contracting between August and October 2019. image/svg+xml Tax collections The chart shows growth in gross tax revenue, which decelerated to -19.8% y-o-y last December. image/svg+xml The next chart shows growth in GST collections, which had also been slowing since early 2019, though it recovered towards the end of the year.