Year ender 2018: The release of GDP back series was long overdue

In July, an expert committee set up by the National Statistical Commission released a series to show that GDP grew even faster than was estimated for some years under UPA

A back series by definition, looks back. But the back series of GDP data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in November has created a controversy that raises doubts about the credibility of Indian statistics. The release of the GDP back series was long overdue — since January 2015 when the national accounts data was released with the new base year of 2011-12. It was known that the series would need to post the GDP data for some years before 2011-12 on the new base to make those comparable with the new series. Since there has been a change