PM’s economic adviser denies allegations of Centre manipulating GDP data

Prime Minister’s Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal in an interview to India Today on Tuesday defended the Union government’s change in the methodology for calculating the gross domestic product amid Opposition’s allegations of data manipulation.

“No serious economist is looking at this data and saying that it is not credible,” Sanyal said.

The data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Monday showed that India’s economy grew 7.8% year-on-year in the April-June quarter, higher than the Reserve Bank of India’s 7% forecast.

Sanyal said that there had been a problem with the methodology to calculate GDP until the base year was updated last year.

The base year is updated at the beginning of each decade, he told the news channel. However, it could not be revised at the start of this decade as the Covid-19 pandemic did not reflect normal economic conditions, he said.

“We had to wait till 2024 before we could get a typical year which we could use as base year,” he added.

The government had revised the GDP base year from 2011-’12 to 2022-’23 in February. The base year is used as a reference point to measure economic growth.

Sanyal added that the stronger GDP figures are also reflected in other indicators, including corporate profitability and car sales.

On Tuesday, the Congress described...

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