The story so far:Last November, the Indian government received a ‘C’ grade, the second-lowest grade, by the International Monetary Fund for the quality of its national accounts statistics. Over the last few months, it has made several upgrades to its statistical databases, improving their timeliness, representativeness, accuracy, and coverage. These improvements have been wide-ranging, covering the way India measures its gross domestic product (GDP), the value addition in the economy, industrial output, and price levels at the retail, wholesale, and producer levels.What are the metrics that have been updated?The most significant of these changes was made to India’s national accounts statistics in February this year by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). National accounts include several key metrics such as GDP, gross value added (GVA), sector-wise output and growth figures, and the contributions of each of the engines of growth to the economy — government expenditure, private investment, household consumption, and trade. These are released on a quarterly and annual basis.In June, MoSPI also updated the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which captures how industrial activity in the economy is doing on a monthly basis. This includes key sectors such as manufacturing, mining, electricity, infrastructure, capital goods, and consumer goods. Apart from providing a regular snapshot of how the industrial sectors are doing, these monthly figures also feed into the GDP and GVA metrics.