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By Bloomberg

India missed a chance to overtake China as the world’s fastest growing major economy as its expansion last year fell short of estimates.

Gross domestic product rose 7.3 percent in the 12 months ended March 31 from a year earlier, the Central Statistics Office said in a statement in New Delhi on Friday. That was slower than the 7.4 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey and compares with China’s 7.4 percent expansion in 2014. Indian growth was 7.5 percent in the January-March period.

The weaker numbers are more in line with other indicators showing slowing output and sluggish corporate earnings. They add pressure on central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan to lower interest rates for a third time this year when he reviews policy on June 2.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to make it easier for businesses to operate during his first year in office, including through reduced red tape and allowing more foreign investment in some sectors. Other moves to make it easier to buy land and implement a national sales tax are stuck in parliament.

“Policies will be aimed at investment recovery,” Radhika Rao, an economist at DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore, said before the data. “Therefore, the government will take the lead and then bring back the corporate sector to the table.”

The rupee was little changed in the offshore market soon after the data was published. India’s benchmark stock index rose 1.2 percent on Friday and the yield on the 10-year sovereign bond was little changed at 7.64 percent before the data.

Fudging Figures

Most analysts in a Bloomberg survey predict Rajan will cut the repurchase rate to 7.25 percent from 7.5 percent. Swaps indicate he’ll decrease it to 7 percent by the end of 2015.

Rajan, who said earlier this week that growth was “still slow in picking up,” is among economists who’ve raised questions about the government’s new GDP data series unveiled in January. The latest government data show factory output at a five-month low and exports dropping for a fifth straight month, while bad loans are estimated to rise to a 15-year high.

The economy’s main growth drivers include the finance sector and real estate, followed by trade, hotels, transport and communication. The agricultural sector, which employs more than half of the population, has slowed in recent years.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday accused the government of fudging figures to hide a fragile recovery. In a speech to the National Students Union of India, he called on the administration to give correct information to citizens.

“Is growth picking up?” Pranjul Bhandari, a Mumbai-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc wrote in a report on Thursday. “Depends on who you ask, what indicators you look at and, more recently, how much you buy into the new GDP series.”