NDA's GDP figures a 'jumla', says Congress

Terming the recent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) as a "jumla", the Congress Party has said the base year, used to calculate GDP, was changed in order to reach 7.1 percent and added that the government has also failed to factor in the demonetisation affect.

"The GDP growth put together by the NDA government is a myth; it is actually a 'jumla'. They have actually changed the base (year) on the basis of which the calculation of the GDP is done. But even with the new figures, we find the economy is not performing well," Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra told ANI.

Mishra noted that after demonitisation, the economy has started contracting, thereby affecting the producing capacity of the country.

"It seems that the demonetisation drive is further going to squeeze the economic development that we have witnessed during the UPA regime," he said.

"The full and fuller extent of the difficulty faced by the economy is going to be witnessed in the next three to four quarters or even beyond," he added.

The CSO yesterday came out with Advance Estimates of National Income for 2016-17 and projected India's GDP growth to slow down to 7.1 per cent, from 7.6 per cent in 2015-16.

Chief Statistician TCA Anant said the CSO estimate is based on data available till October, which means that the impact of demonetisation announced is yet to be factored in.