Goldman Sachs has yanked down its growth forecast for this fiscal to an abysmal 1.6 per cent and said the Narendra Modi-government has not done enough if seen in the light of the measures taken during the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Economic growth is likely to plummet to a multi-decade low of 1.6 per cent in 2020-21 because of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing measures such as lockdowns and social distancing, the American brokerage said on Wednesday in one of the bleakest forecasts on GDP yet.

Indian policymakers have not been aggressive enough in their responses till now to the crisis and will need to eventually intensify their efforts, the economists at Goldman Sachs said.

It can be noted that growth was estimated to slide to a decadal low of 5 per cent for 2019-20 even without the pandemic, and the virus outbreak has only worsened the woes.

Many analysts have been doing downward reviews of their forecasts amid coronavirus concerns with some estimating a contraction in the first quarter of the financial year but this is the lowest forecast for the year as a whole yet.

“Despite the policy support so far, and our expectations of more, we believe that the nationwide shutdown, and rising public anxiety about the virus are likely to lead to a sharp deterioration in economic activity in March, and in the next quarter,” it said. ‘