NDA govt fudging data to project high growth: Digvijay

Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has charged the BJP-led NDA government with "fudging figures" to project high GDP numbers and claimed the economic growth is not at all reflected on the ground.

"Ever since...BJP government has come in, they are acting like what Chinese were doing, fudging figures," the AICC General Secretary told.

Asked for his views on US State Department's observation that India's high growth rates may be overstated, the two-time Madhya Pradesh chief minister said, "I totally agree."

Even some Chinese Communist leaders have questioned the "over-estimation" of their country's GDP growth, he said.

"They (NDA government) have changed the base year (for GDP growth calculation), they have changed the format. Even the Chief Statistician (T C A) Anant who prepares these figures, he himself has said there are some sort of gaps which had to be assumed and they might have been assumed on the higher side," Singh said.

He claimed that the high GDP growth rate does not reflect on the ground.

"You talk to any businessman in this country today, across the board they all feel that the business is not picking up. There is no money in the market," Singh said.

Noting that the economy can grow when there is demand and business, he said demand for gold, land, white goods, textiles and two-wheelers have not picked up, while food inflation has gone up.

"Dal is over Rs 150 a kilo...Wheat prices have gone up. Sugar prices have gone up. Edible oil prices have gone up. So, where is the growth? I can't see growth," Singh said.

Morgan Stanley's Chief Global Strategist Ruchir Sharma had also said recently that India's GDP data is overstated.