NEW DELHI, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- India's economic growth rate slipped to 5.7 percent, a three-year low, in the April-June quarter or first quarter of the fiscal year 2017-18, officials said Thursday.
The figures released by India's federal Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed the GDP growth fell to 5.7 percent in the quarter ended June 30, from 7.9 percent in the corresponding period a year ago.
Economists attribute the dip to the impact of government's demonetisation move last year and the uncertainty around implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) this year.
The demonetisation severely hurt sectors related to construction and induced a slowdown, analysts said.
"The sectors that have performed badly included mining and quarrying, and construction," the data said.
Both the sectors are cash intensive which took the worst hit after the demonetisation.
In the previous quarter January-March, released in June, India lost the tag of being world's fastest growing major economy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision in November last year to withdraw currency notes of 500 and 1,000 Indian rupees from the financial system triggered panic among people who queued outside banks and ATMs to change the banned currency notes and withdraw cash.
The sudden decision took 86 percent of the currency out of circulation overnight from India.
On Wednesday, India's central bank - Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its annual report said 99 percent of the scrapped currency notes, had come back between the government's demonetisation decision and June 30, 2017.
Following the release of the report, opposition parties criticised the government's move, saying the step was a "disaster" and "failure."
