India Does Not Use Revisions In Base Years To Artificially Boost Output Figures: CEA

India does not use revisions in methodology or base years to artificially boost economic output figures, said Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Dr V Anantha Nageswaran defending credibility of India’s GDP statistics.
In an interview with ANI, CEA responded to concerns over India’s GDP estimates, stressing that GDP measurement is an estimate in every country and that India follows internationally accepted statistical practices, and said GDP is an estimate. “No country can pretend that they have an accurate way of measuring the GDP,” he said.
India’s recent GDP rebasing exercise demonstrates that the government is not attempting to inflate economic figures through statistical changes. If they had said Indian GDP was no longer 354 lakh crores but 384 lakh crores, people would have accepted that, he added.
We are the only country which brought it down, he said referring to the revision following the change in base year and methodology.
“So we are not trying to use any of these methodological changes to bump up our numbers. India’s statistical system aims to produce reliable data rather than numbers that support any particular narrative. We produce reliable statistics. We follow internationally accepted methods and we don’t use the GDP methodological revisions to bump up numbers artificially,” he said.
He also pointed to assessments by international institutions, saying criticisms have largely focused on methodology rather than the reliability of India’s data.
Further, Nageswaran said India’s bigger worry isn’t ageing before it gets rich, but becoming unhealthier before it gets rich, pointing to rising obesity and sedentary lifestyles that threaten the country’s productivity dividend.
Speaking on individual health, Nageswaran said it is now treated as a core growth factor.
“If you look at the last three economic surveys, we have written about the importance of physical health and mental health also in determining our growth rate. Because what is growth? It is coming from productivity. How can the labour be productive if it is not mentally and physically healthy?”