Finance Minister P Chidambaram expects the Indian economy to grow by 5.5-6 per cent in the current fiscal, and by 7 per cent and 8 per cent in 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively.

During his visit to Mexico for a G20 meeting, Chidambaram said, “I'm looking forward to this year ending with 5.5-6 percent growth… and next year getting back to 7% growth, and in 2014-15 getting back to 8% growth.”

In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hacked its economic growth projection for India for the fiscal year of 2012 to 4.9 per cent from its previous estimate 6.1 per cent.

In the interview, Chidambaram admitted that rate of inflation was at an unacceptable level.

Since the start of the current fiscal year, the consumer price index (CPI) has averaged at 10.12 per cent and the wholesale price index (WPI) inflation at 7.6 per cent.

Economists say that Indians have conservative outlook towards investments, and thus they prefer to put their money in bank fixed deposits. But such investors do not realize that they actually lose their capital due to the loss of purchasing power ability because returns from fixed deposits can not beat inflation.