On a day when the govt revised its economic growth forecast to 8.75 pc for the current fiscal, ratings firm Crisil also said the country’s GDP is likely to grow by 8.6 pc, up from its previous expectation of 8.2 pc.

“Crisil has revised India’s growth forecast upwards to 8.6 per cent for 2010-11 in view of the economy’s strong performance in the first two quarters of 2010-11, as shown by the recent CSO release,” the ratings agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

Crisil has earlier put its growth forecast for the country during this fiscal at 8.2 percent.

Its revision came on a day when the government said the growth rate could cross 9 percent in the current fiscal itself and revert to the pre-crisis levels.

In its Mid-year Economic Analysis, the government estimated that growth in 2010-11 will be 8.75 percent with 0.35 percent variation on either side.

Having grown by over 9 percent in three years in a row, the economic growth rate slipped to 6.7 percent in 2008-09 on account of global financial meltdown.

The growth rate, however, picked up to 7.4 percent in 2009-10 as a result of stimulus provided by the government and the Reserve Bank of India.

The economy, according to earlier estimates, was expected to grow by 8.5 percent in the current fiscal rising to the pre-crisis level of 9 percent in the next fiscal.

Crisil said that during 2010-11, growth in agriculture is likely to grow by five percent, while industry and services are expected to register an increase of 8.6 and 9.4 percent, respectively.

According to it, robust farm production this year is aiding recovery and also reining in inflation.

“We have upgraded our GDP growth forecast to 8.6 per cent for 2010-11, based on our expectations of 8.4 per cent growth in private consumption. The internal rebalancing of growth in India now seems to be complete…,” Crisil Chief Economist D K Joshi said.

The agency, however, said that industrial growth is expected to decelerate to 7.3 percent in the second half from 10.1 percent in the first half of 2010-11.

“Despite this the average industrial growth for the year, at 8.6 per cent, will remain above the long-term trend,” it said, adding that the current account deficit (CAD) forecast has been raised to 3.3 percent of the GDP for 2010-11.

Regarding inflation, the ratings agency said that fall in food inflation will pull down the overall inflation to 6 percent by March 2011.

Manwhile, the Analysis said that inflation has started coming down and is placed at 8.6 percent in October this year compared to 11 percent witnessed in April 2010.

“I am hoping that inflation will come down to 6 per cent by March 2011,” Mukherjee told reporters after tabling the report in Parliament.

The Finance Minister said the report has been rechristened Mid-Year Economic Analysis from Mid-Year Economic Review as the new name has wider connotation.

“Earlier, the term was review but this time we have chosen the term analysis as it gives us a broader space,” he said.