GST will help in better calculation of GDP: Anant

The Goods and Services Tax (GST), which the Centre is planning to implement from April 1, 2017, will help in calculating the country's GDP in a better way, a senior official said.
"Once GST is in place, calculation of GSP (gross state product) will be better. The Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) has said the value chain will be captured even better. Considerable amount of work is taking place," Secretary with the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and Chief Statistician of India, T C A Anant said today.
He said discussions, so far, have focused on the need to "shave" tax collection under GST either by the Centre or states.

"As far as data network is planned, it is expected that all aspects will be taken care of," Anant said at an interaction organised by the MCCI here.
Defending the new series of national income used for GDP calculation, which created controversy, Anant said "This is better than the older one which did not capture the entire value chain."
He said certain changes have been made like sources of collating data, creation of a quasi-corporate entity which does not submit accounts and corporate, which maintain accounts, among others.

Anant said while corporate data was collected from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs annually, household information was collated every five years from the NSS data.

"Now GDP at market prices is calculated by adding GVA (gross value added) with taxes and then subtracting the subsidies," he said, adding the first quarter GDP estimates, which was lower at 7.1 per cent, was due to the fact that while GVA rose, taxes have fallen marginally along with subsidies.
He said the ministry was now planning to launch a labour survey for measurement on quarterly and yearly basis.