Ahead of 2019 polls, govt slashes GDP growth rate during UPA era

The government Wednesday lowered the country's economic growth rate during the previous Congress-led UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus per cent expansion.

Recalibrating data of past years using 2011-12 as the base year instead of 2004-05, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimated that India's GDP grew by 8.5 per cent in the financial year 2010-11 (April 2010 to March 2011) and not at 10.3 per cent as previously estimated.

Similarly, 9.3 per cent growth rate each in 2005-06 and 2006-07 was lowered to 7.9 per cent and 8.1 per cent respectively, while 7.7 per cent rate was now estimated for 2007-08 instead of 9.8 per cent.

The revised growth numbers have been released ahead of the 2019 general elections.

At a joint press conference along with Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said variation in two sets of numbers was due to the recalibration of data in certain sectors of the economy, including mining, quarrying and telecom.

"A complex exercise has been carried out by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to update the National Accounts Series. The new series has made significant methodological improvements," Kumar said.

He added that the New Series, with its supporting back series, is "internationally comparable and is in sync with UN Standard National Account."