Days after release of first advance estimated by National Statistics Office (NSO), a research report from State Bank of India’s (SBI’s) Economic Research Department has estimated that Indian economy likely to grow at 7.5% in 2025-26 with upward bias. This projection is marginally higher from NSO’ estimate. The National Statistics Office (NSO) put GDP growth in 2025-26 at 7.4% as compared to 6.5% in the previous fiscal. The RBI had projected the growth rate at 7.3%. 

The report said historically, the difference between Reserve Bank's estimate and NSO’s estimate is 20-30 basis points and hence the 7.4% estimate is quite expected and reasonable. On fiscal deficit, it said that at the end of November 2025 it stood at Rs 9.8 lakh crore or 62.3 per cent of budget estimate. It said ‘We believe that even though the tax revenue is likely to be lower than that budgeted for FY26, non-tax revenue will be on the higher side thereby not impacting the overall receipts much’.

It noted that total expenditure is also expected to be lower, leading to fiscal deficit of Rs 15.85 lakh crore compared to the budgeted Rs 15.69 lakh crore. With the new GDP figure, fiscal deficit as percentage of GDP is likely to remain unchanged at 4.4 per cent. Meanwhile, the second advance estimates, incorporating additional data and revisions, are scheduled to be released on February 27, 2026. So, the report said all these numbers are expected to change with the base revision to 2022-23.