Questions have been raised by some commentators over the veracity of the first quarter FY27 GDP data released by the Centre on Monday. businesslinecaught up over phone with Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran, who’s travelling in the US, to understand the correct picture. Edited excerpts:
There is criticism that the real GDP growth in the first quarter of this fiscal is not 7.8 per cent but just 2.6 per cent. This is based on a comparison of last year’s first quarter GDP of ₹86 lakh crore with the current year’s first quarter GDP of ₹88 lakh crore. Is this criticism valid?
The ₹86 lakh crore first quarter GDP estimate of last year was based on the old base year and the old methodology. So, how can you even compare that?If you want to compare ₹86 lakh crore, you have to estimate a number that would have been the case had the old series continued and the old methodology continued. That number could be in the mid-90s. Then you can compare. But you are taking ₹86 lakh crore, which was under 2011-12 base year, and under the old methodology, and then taking the new number of ₹88 lakh crore under the 2022-23 base year under the new methodology, and arriving at 2.2 per cent or 2.3 per cent nominal GDP growth, which is completely unsustainable. You have to have a common platform, common basis to compare numbers.When the Ministry of Statistics came up with the new base year and the new methodology in February, they had already lowered the full year GDP for India for FY26 from ₹357 lakh crore to ₹345 lakh crore. At that time nobody had any idea about the Persian Gulf conflict or how the first quarter numbers would pan out, etc. So, this is not something that was pulled off only to show a 10 per cent nominal GDP growth.
