MUMBAI: Indian shares fell 0.22 per cent on Monday as investors sold on concerns sluggish economic growth would dent corporate earnings due to higher costs and interest rates.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said the Indian economy would likely withstand an uncertain external environment to grow about seven per cent this fiscal year, lower than the government's revised forecast of about 7.5 per cent last month.

“The investor sentiment was negative right from start. But despite of prime minister's comments, the market has not fallen in a big way,” said R K Gupta, managing director at Taurus Mutual Fund.

“There could be some positive trend in the market if we see good numbers from industrial production and Infosys earnings awaited later this week.”

Infosys, the country's second largest software exporter,  will kick off the October-December earnings on Thursday.

Shares of Energy major Reliance Industries led Monday's losses with a 1.2 per cent fall, followed by top telecoms company Bharti Airtel that declined 3.16 per cent.

Royal Bank of Scotland has downgraded Bharti and Idea Cellular to hold from buy, and Reliance Communications  to sell from hold, citing greater regulatory risk and potential impact of policy uncertainty on growth.

The main BSE index fell 34.08 points to end at 15,814.72, with 16 of its components ending in the red.

Top private lender ICICI Bank snapped early losses and gained 0.35 per cent after Macquarie upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral on expectations of improvement in margins and better-than-expected asset quality.

The broader 50-share NSE index fell 0.1 per cent to 4,742.80. In the broad market, there were 1.78 gainers for every loser on low volume of 582.33 million shares.