India is likely to take another 12 years to overcome the losses its economy incurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India said in a report released on Friday.
India’s economic output suffered a loss of nearly Rs 52 lakh crore due to the pandemic, the central bank estimated in the analysis titled “Report on Currency and Finance 2021-’22”. As far as individual financial years are concerned, the losses amounted to Rs 19.1 lakh crore in 2020-’21, Rs 17.1 lakh crore in 2021-’22 and Rs 16.4 lakh crore in 2022-’23.
“Taking the actual growth rate of (-) 6.6% for 2020-21, 8.9 % for 2021-22 and assuming growth rate of 7.2% for 2022-23, and 7.5% beyond that, India is expected to overcome Covid-19 losses in 2034-’35,” the RBI report stated.
The multiple waves of Covid-19 have come in the way of sustained recovery of the economy and the quarterly trends in the gross domestic product, or GDP, growth has followed the ebb and flow of the pandemic, the central bank observed.
The report also noted that the supply constraints and longer delivery times of goods due to the Covid-19 restrictions pushed up their shipping costs, thereby leading to increase in prices of commodities and inflation figures.
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