Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council or PMEAC and retired Reserve Bank of India Governor C. Rangarajan on Thursday lowered the growth projection for the current fiscal to six percent from 6.7 percent estimated earlier.

He said "The disturbing area is manufacturing, therefore one may have to revise estimates downwards. It is quite possible for the economy to pick up in second half and give a growth rate close to 6 per cent for the year as a whole."

In its 'Economic Outlook for 2012-13' report released in August, the PMEAC projected the Indian economy to grow at 6.7 percent for the current fiscal year.

The Indian economy grew at a faster pace of over eight percent in two consecutive fiscal before declining to a nine year low of 6.5 percent in 2011-12.

He said that the economic growth in the July-September quarter would be around 5.5 percent, flat at April-June quarter, as the recent set of industrial output data did not show any improvement. Industrial output in the April-August period this fiscal was 0.4 percent, down from 5.6 percent in the same period in 2011-12.

RTTNews