NEW DELHI, India – India's economy will grow 6.7% in the current fiscal year, an advisory panel to the prime minister forecast Friday (August 17th), saying that an ongoing slowdown was of "great concern", AFP reported.

India's gross domestic product expanded at near double-digit rate for much of the past decade but fell to 6.5% in the year to March 2012, triggering fears that the country's rapid development was under threat.

"The decline in the growth rate is a matter of great concern to us," C. Rangarajan, chairman of the economic advisory council to Manmohan Singh, told reporters in New Delhi.

The council also forecast that inflation in the year to March 2013 would be between 6.5 and 7.0%, above the central bank target of around 5%, because of food price rise caused by a poor monsoon.

Opposition leaders and many independent economists have dismissed such figures as overly optimistic.

Ratings agency Moody's last week scaled down its growth outlook for Asia's third-largest economy to 5.5% for the year to March 2013.