Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), Bibek Debroy said yesterday that India is on the right path to becoming one of the fastest expanding major economies in the world surpassing China. The statement comes after the December quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) results of 7.2%.

The country's growth will pick up more in the upcoming quarter driven by the government's commitment to implement structural reforms, and aided by higher growth in the industrial and services sectors as well as spending by the Centre, he said.

"The GDP trends are consistent with the robust growth of the manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI), Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and consumer demand," an official statement said, quoting Debroy.

The Indian economy showed good signs of recovery with a five-quarter high growth of 7.2% in the October-December period with the help of good performance by key sectors like agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.

The economy is expected to grow at 6.6% in the current fiscal ending March 31, as per the second advanced estimates of the Central Statistics Office (CSO), compared to 7.1% in 2016-17.

The earlier estimate was 6.5 %.

The CSO said that the real GDP at constant (2011-12) prices in 2017-18 is likely to be Rs 130.04 lakh crore, as against the first revised estimate for 2016-17 of Rs 121.96 lakh crore, released on January 31.

Inputs from PTI