Global rating and research agency CRISIL has said that India was facing one of its worst phases of recession, amid the Lockdown imposed to contain novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak.
In a report on India's growth forecast released on Tuesday, titled "Minus Five", CRISIL forecast India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to fall off a cliff and contract 5.0 per cent in fiscal 2021.
The first quarter of the year, as per this report, will suffer a massive contraction of 25 per cent, according to Xinhua.
Earlier, on April 28 the CRISIL had slashed its India growth prediction to 1.8 per cent for the Financial Year 2020-21, from 3.5 per cent forecast earlier, but it said "things have only gone downhill since" in its latest publication.
It now expects non-agricultural GDP to contract 6 percent, and adds that agriculture could cushion the blow by growing at 2.5 per cent this fiscal.
The CRISIL report said - "In the past 69 years, India has seen a recession only thrice - as per available data - in fiscals 1958, 1966 and 1980. The reason was the same each time - a monsoon shock that hit agriculture, then a sizeable part of the economy. The recession staring at us today is different."