A few days ago, OECD said Indian real GDP growth in 2012-13 would be 4.4%. Reacting to this, Montek Singh Ahluwalia reportedly said, “I was thinking of telling OECD that I just don’t think that they know what they are doing.” He added that OECD was mechanically projecting deceleration of growth rates and Q1 of 5.5% was an anomaly. In February 2012, PM’s Economic Advisory Council told us growth in 2012-13 would be between 7.5 and 8.0%.The budget for 2012-13 projected growth of 7.6% and then FM told us 2012-13 would be the year of turn-around. Economic Survey, authored of course by then Chief Economic Adviser, also talked about growth of 7.6%, with precision of +/- 0.25% thrown in. It doesn’t require economic expertise to figure out who are the people who don’t know what they are doing.In Q4 of 2011-12, growth dropped to 5.3% and we were then told this was an anomaly. In Q1 of 2012-13, growth was 5.5% and we were told growth was picking up, even if it was by a marginal 0.2% over Q4 of last year. We would just have to wait till 30th November, when Q2 figures of 2012-13 would come in. Government optimism would be vindicated.Those Q2 figures show 5.3% and there is no such vindication. “Mechanical” projection over at least three quarters suggests we are on a little over 5%. OECD’s 4.4% looks statistically unlikely, but that is neither here nor there. For the full year, a “good” scenario would have growth just over 5% and a “bad” one just below that. RBI has lowered projected growth from 6.5% to 5.8%, but that 5.8% looks unlikely too.There is a point beyond which one should abandon self-denial over growth slowdown and that slowdown also has implications for revenue and deficit reduction. As a statistical digression, one should mention the incomprehensible decision taken to exclude unorganized sectors from advance estimates. That’s largely responsible for large deviations between final GDP numbers and advance estimates. When reconciliation is done at the end of the year, together with Q4 numbers, and unorganized sector included, there have been significant variations between advance and final numbers, questioning validity of all advance GDP numbers. Having said this, there are different ways to slice that 5.3% figure. First, agriculture, forestry and fishing have slowed to 1.2%, lower than Q1 and also lower than 2011-12.Second, both mining and quarrying and manufacturing did marginally better in Q2, but manufacturing is nowhere near growth registered during high growth years. Third, electricity, gas and water supply has slowed significantly. Fourth, two service sectors, construction and trade, hotels, transport and communication have also dropped dramatically.More importantly, investments are stuck. Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) is 33.8% of GDP at market prices if constant prices are taken and 30.6% if current prices are taken. There is an investment problem, caused by reasons cited ad nauseam. A little bit of FDI here and there won’t solve that problem and there has been no movement, National Investment Board notwithstanding, on encouraging investment and easing bottlenecks.In real terms, between Q1 and Q2, consumption expenditure (private as well as government) and exports are also flat. Add to that the phenomenon of some service sectors showing lower rates of growth. Stated differently, there are no obvious sources of growth. These are all-India numbers. And the picture would have been more dismal had some States not continued to grow fast. The first step to solving the growth problem is to recognize that there is one and not continue to blame non-government organizations for “not knowing what they are doing”.Surely, after three quarters of low growth, there is no case for self-denial anymore, or a case for persisting with rosy projections that will somehow talk the economy up. Since 2008-08, the key problem has been one of switching growth sources from public expenditure to private consumption and private investments.That attempt hasn’t succeeded and proclivities of present government are still on increasing unproductive public expenditure, crowding out private sources of growth and pumping liquidity into the system, contributing to inflation. Inclusive growth is fine as a buzzword, but there has to be growth to redistribute. There is not much point in saying there are few 1 billion-plus democracies that have registered 5%-plus growth, or blaming slowdown on the external world. Primary constraints are endogenous. And expectations of a young India hinge on 9%-plus growth, also required for making dents on poverty and unemployment.