MUMBAI: Indian economy is expected to grow by 8.1 per cent in the current fiscal on the back of a turn-around in agriculture production and an anticipated good showing by the industry and service sectors, a leading economic think-tank said.

At the same time, the think-tank pegs the inflation at around 6.6 per cent in FY 11, which may start receding from the second-half of this year.
“We have projected an 8.1 per cent GDP growth. And the one big change is in agriculture production which is likely to see a positive growth this year,” the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) Senior Research Counsellor, Mr Shashanka Bhide, told reporters here on Monday.
The NCAER’s projection for FY 10 (for agriculture) was actually a negative growth of 1.5 per cent, Mr Bhide said, adding “for this year, we are projecting (agriculture production) growth at around four per cent. And that will be a big contribution to the change in overall growth.”
“I think the big contribution will be from the agriculture,” he said.        
On inflation, Mr Bhide said that he expected the average rate of inflation to be in the range of 6.6 per cent.
“Our average rate of inflation for the year is 6.6 per cent for WPI. We are of the view that the inflation rate will decline in the second-half this fiscal, primarily because of the monsoon effect. Primary article prices would start coming down--I think growth will also be there because of the more stable price scenario.”
Industry and service sectors are also expected to contribute healthily to growth, he said.
“We expect both to contribute 8.5-9 per cent to GDP growth,” Mr Bhide said.