The spurt in COVID-19 cases poses a risk to economic recovery, and the GDP is unlikely to achieve the earlier projected 3 percent growth for March quarter 2020-21, Wall Street brokerage Bank of America (BofA) Securities said.

 Noting that a month-long nationwide lockdown can shave off 100-200 basis points off the GDP, the brokerage said growth is still weak, amplified by the steep fall in key economic activity indicators and the anemic loan growth, and the surging pandemic cases is only increasing the worries on the growth front.

However, the report by BofA Securities did not offer a likely GDP number for the March quarter 2020-21. The seven-component BofA India activity indicator slowed to 1 percent in February from 1.3 percent in January, the report said, as 4 of the 7 constituents of the India activity index slowed in February over the previous month. The report also pointed out that this poses risks to their 3 percent real GVA growth forecast for the March quarter. The index had first time in 2020-21 turned positive in December 2020 after declining for nine straight months. Spike in pandemic cases poses a rising risk to recovery. "We estimate that a month of national lockdown costs 100- 200 bps of GDP," the report warned.

 The pandemic caseload in India has been surging hitting new records every day for the past fortnight. The latest official number puts the daily infections at 2.17 lakh in the past 24 hours and 1,185 deaths-- both are the highest in the world and more than the combined numbers of the second and the third most affected countries-- Brazil and the US. The report said it remains to be seen if the second wave subsides without a national lockdown and noted that Maharashtra, which contributes over 16 percent of national GDP is already under lockdown till the end of the month as the state has more than half of the new cases.

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