GDP back series data unofficial estimates: Centre

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Sunday said that the recently released back series data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country are not official estimates.

In a press statement, the MoSPI clarified that the data was only meant to help the ministry in taking a decision on using a suitable approach to generating the new back series of GDP data. In May 2017, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) had revised the base year of the GDP and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) to 2011-12 from 2004-05.

The MoSPI said that five committees were constituted by the National Statistical Commission (NSC) to examine the issues faced by the various sectors of the economy and to suggest measures needed to tackle them. These committees held discussions with experts and after finalising their reports, presented them to the NSC in July 2018. The NSC had then "decided to place these reports on the website of MoSPI for wider consultation."

One of those committees, the Committee on Real Sector Statistics looked into the data challenges in bringing out the back series of GDP (base 2011-12) as several new sources had been used for determining the new series that were either not available or not reliable in the base 2004-05 series.

"The Committee approached the data challenges using different approaches," said the statement, adding, "The Committee used the production shift approach and came out with some experimental results to see how the approach compares with the earlier series. Thus, the estimates in the report are not official estimates and are meant only to facilitate taking a decision on the appropriate approach."

"These recommendations of the NSC Committees will be examined by MoSPI and other experts for deciding on the appropriate methodology to be adopted for generating the Back Series estimates for each sector. The Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics will be deliberating on the Back Series estimates before finalising the same for continuity, consistency and reliability," the statement added.

A report by sub-committee of the NSC on real sector statistics claimed that going by revised GDP measures, the economic growth touched double digits -- 10 per cent -- during UPAs rule in 2006-07.

It was reported in a section of media that according to the report of NSC sub-committee, the average economic growth rate was 8.87 per cent during UPA's first term in 2004-09. This fell to 7.39 per cent during its second term in 2009-14. The report further claimed that in comparison to the UPA, the average growth rate during NDA's first four years (2014-18) was 7.35 per cent.