Nominal GDP Growth At 8%: What It Means For Fiscal Deficit, Banks And FY27 Outlook

India’s nominal GDP growth has come in at around 8%, more than 200 basis points lower than the assumptions made in the Union Budget, raising important questions about fiscal management, banking profitability and growth expectations ahead. In this discussion, Siddhartha Sanyal, Chief Economist, Bandhan Bank, explains why the unusually narrow gap between real and nominal GDP reflects persistently low inflation rather than an economic shock. He highlights the challenges this creates for managing the fiscal deficit, given a lower-than-expected nominal GDP denominator, and the potential implications for credit growth, deposit mobilisation and corporate earnings. Saugata Bhattacharya, Senior Fellow at CPR and Member of the Monetary Policy Committee, shares his outlook on inflation trends, commodity prices and the GDP deflator, suggesting that nominal growth is likely to normalise in FY27 as CPI and WPI pressures gradually pick up. The conversation underscores how high growth with low inflation, while desirable, presents near-term policy and fiscal trade-offs for the government.