Revision in GDP estimates is common practice across nations

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Andrii Yalanskyi

There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics. Twain said Disraeli said it. The records suggest Disraeli never did. Even the quote has a revision problem. The attribution was updated as evidence improved. India’s Q1 GDP now enjoys similar treatment. The official estimate is 7.8 per cent real growth. Nominal growth is 10.3 per cent. A rival figure claims 2.6 per cent. That figure deserves dissection. Not as economics. As entertainment. The recipe is simple. Take this year’s Q1, ₹88.27 lakh crore. That sits on the new 2022-23 base. Divide by last year’s ₹86.05 lakh crore. That sat on the old 2011-12 base. Different base, different methods, different coverage. This is dividing an apple by an orange. The quotient is fruit salad. Serve chilled, on prime time.The paper trail is public and dull. On August 29, 2025, Q1 FY26 was ₹86.05 lakh crore. February 2026 brought the new series. The figure became ₹80.32 lakh crore. June 2026 made it ₹80.44 lakh crore. New IIP and PPI series then arrived. It settled at ₹80 lakh crore. Four steps. Each dated. Each published. As heists go, this one issued press releases.Now do the sum properly. ₹88.27 over ₹80.32 gives 10.3 per cent. Distrust February? Use the June vintage instead. Nominal growth is still 9.7 per cent. Real growth is about 7.4 per cent. Not 2.6. You cannot reach 2.6 without mixing the fruit. Statistics has one iron rule. Compare like with like. Cricket averages are not computed across formats. A Test average is not divided by T20 innings. Nobody races this year’s marathon against last year’s sprint. GDP deserves the same courtesy. It rarely receives it in August.Pressure from IMFWhy rebase at all? Ask the IMF. Its 2025 data adequacy assessment graded our national accounts C. Like a strict schoolmaster, it listed the faults. A base year stuck in 2011-12. Single deflation with WPI, for want of a PPI. Unexplained discrepancies between production and expenditure. The February 2026 rebasing fixed exactly these. A 2022-23 base, double deflation, a proper PPI. The IMF called it critical and welcome. The homework the examiner demanded is now called cheating.Could we have rebased earlier? Base years must be boring years. 2016-17 had demonetisation. 2017-18 had the GST transition. Then Covid ate two more. 2022-23 was the first year that behaved. Base years are like passport photographs. Choose a calm day. Statisticians waited for the economy to sit still. Photographers with toddlers will understand.Now grade the alleged conspiracy. Last year was supposedly shrunk to flatter this year. Three difficulties arise. First, the shrinking was announced six months in advance. Conspiracies rarely come with a press calendar. Second, the rebasing cut nominal GDP by 4 per cent. Cooks who shrink their own kitchen are rare. Third, MoSPI released 64 tables of methodology. No self-respecting fudger loves annexures this much.Here is the delicious part. The 7.8 is provisional. It will be revised until February 2029. On the old base, FY22 to FY25 saw 25 upward revisions. Downward ones numbered 12. The odds favour up, not down. Today’s 7.8 could plausibly become 8.2. Will the critics then apologise? At current prices or constant? History suggests neither. Revisions travel both ways. Outrage travels only one.Nor is revision an Indian vice. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis revises perpetually. Its 2024 study covers 1999 to 2022. Advance estimates moved 1.2 percentage points on average. Comprehensive revisions arrive every five years. The UK revises. Japan revises. Everyone revises. Only astrologers never do. Timeliness has a price. That price is called revision. Only the final number is final. And even that gets a comprehensive haircut.Meanwhile, some numbers cannot be conjured. GST till August was ₹10.42 lakh crore, up 11 per cent. Passenger vehicles rose 25.6 per cent. August dispatches grew 35 per cent. Commercial vehicles grew over 40 per cent. Tractors rose 19 per cent, cement 8.8 per cent. Exports till July grew 17 per cent. Net FDI rose from $4.75 billion to $7.8 billion. An economy limping at 2.6 does not buy tractors like this. Cement does not read press releases. Tractors have no politics. Taxes, unlike television arguments, are paid in cash.A final tutorial, free of charge. The 2.6 is a current price number. Growth is compared at constant prices. Current prices carry inflation inside them. Undergraduates learn this in week one. Some forget it between the green room and the camera.None of this canonises 7.8. Doubt is a public service. Real wages remain soft. Good jobs remain a fair question. Ask those questions, and loudly. But ask them on one series. Otherwise it is not scrutiny. It is theatre with a calculator.A party meme showed the economy as beer and the data as froth. Good image, wrong glass. The froth is in the 2.6. The beer is real. And come 2029, it may well pour taller.Sinha writes on macroeconomics and geopoliticsPublished on September 4, 2026