New Delhi (Sputnik) — Raising scepticism over India's actual annual growth, a report prepared by a government survey agency has claimed that the database used by the country's statistics office (NSSO) to calculate India's gross domestic product (GDP) figures appears to be riddled with several ambiguities.
The Indian government changed the criteria in 2015 to calculate the country's growth rate. Since then, it has been using the MCA-21 database, which the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which handles data management, sourced from the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA).
"The problem of non-response was severe in case of units chosen from MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs) frame. About 45% of MCA units were found to be out-of-survey/casualty while EC/BR (economic census/business register) frame had about 18% of such cases", the report said.
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Since the beginning of the new data series, economists have criticised the number, arguing that the database includes many fictitious or shell firms that exist only on paper.
"India had a global reputation for the quality of its statistics. It is unfortunate to see this damaged. On the plus side, this can explain why India's GDP numbers were not matching with its poor record of job creation", Professor Kaushik Basu, economist and former chief economic adviser to the Indian Finance Ministry, said.
Earlier in March this year, India's Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley countered the claims of flaws in India's economic data and emphasised that data is maintained as per the best global practices.
"The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have always commented favourably while accepting our data", Jaitley said on 19 March.
Leaders of opposition parties have taken to Twitter to criticise the latest revelations. Former Finance Minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram said: "Economy has gone back to rack and ruin".
Economy has gone to rack and ruin. The MoF's report for March 2019 lays bare the false propaganda of the BJP government.
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) May 8, 2019
The new govt will have to fix the economic mess that has been created in 5 years.
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) May 8, 2019
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) May 8, 2019
