Do I Hear Eight Percent? How About Seven? A year ago this month, Indian officials offered a pleasant-sounding forecast of 9 percent growth for the country's economy in the coming fiscal year. On Tuesday, with less than two months to go in the fiscal year that ends in March, the government offered another, lower estimate: 6.9 percent. Economic forecasting is always an uncertain business. And it's particularly unreliable when the estimates come from public officials who have an incentive to see the world through rose-colored lenses. The 9 percent estimate, for instance, came in the budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who had hoped that a fast-growing economy would help him trim the fiscal deficit by increasing tax revenue. The more recent number comes from the Central Statistical Office. Given the government's recent poor forecasting performance, how should we think about the coming year? Kaushik Basu, the Finance Ministry's chief economic adviser, told reporters last week that the economy would grow "a little above 7 percent" in the 2012-13 fiscal year. But can we really rely on that number? Much depends on whether you think the current Congress party-led government will get serious about fixing the many problems that ail the economy. Some analysts and policy makers, including Mr. Basu, say that the government is intent on addressing them, as I report in this story. But many remain skeptical. Rajeev Malik, an economist at the investment group CLSA who covers India, said in a research report on Tuesday that he still believes the growth rate will fall to 6.3 percent in the next fiscal year. Economists at Citibank offer a more generous forecast of 7 percent growth. But even that is not spectacular given that many analysts believe that India has the potential to grow at 9 percent or more a year for the next two decades. Could it be possible that the pessimists have it wrong? Perhaps, like analysts and policy makers who were irrationally exuberant at the start of 2011 because the previous year was a good one, these analysts are irrationally discouraged because the last year was not so good. Forecasters often tend to miss turning points in the economy, because their assumptions are based on the existing trend. To get an alternate point of view, I called the economist and fund manager Surjit Bhalla, who has long criticized the current government and often marches to his own drummer far from the crowd of professional forecasters. He offered me one of the sunniest forecasts of any analyst or banker I have spoken to recently. He expects growth to be more than 8 percent in the year that starts in April. He is optimistic because he thinks the pendulum in Indian policy is swinging back from populism toward more pro-growth policies advocated by the technocratic leaders and bureaucrats who have been overruled by their political masters for most of the last seven years that the Congress party has led the government. The technocrats are now gaining leverage, he argues, because the politicians realize they have overplayed their hands and slowed the economy too much. "I feel that the message has got to them completely," Mr. Bhalla told me, "and, if you will, what we are going to see is the revenge of the nerds." The first signs of improvement, he argues, will come during the budget presentation Mr. Mukherjee will make soon after the results of elections in five states are announced on March 6. Mr. Bhalla argues that the government will work to cut its deficit and that will provide a boost to the markets and the economy. Going by the recent stock market rally and a rising rupee, many investors seem to share Mr. Bhalla's optimism. Stuart Davis, chief executive for HSBC's Indian operation, told me two weeks ago that he was starting to see the "bottom" as far as investor sentiment about India was concerned. He offered a more qualified endorsement of the recovery thesis: "I don't think we are going to see a 2009 situation, where that was like a very acute V-shaped recovery," Mr. Davis said. This will be a little flatter and I think it will be a little inconsistent. Whatever happens, one thing is clear: The forecast will probably be wrong.