"The new GDP series is superior than older one," said Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog.
The government on November 28 released the GDP back series data, lowering the country's economic growth rate during the UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post-liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus per cent expansion.
"The new GDP series is superior than older one," said Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog.
"A complex exercise has been carried out by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to update the National Accounts Series. The new series has made significant methodological improvements," Kumar said.
"GDP in FY12 has been revised to 5.2% in new series against 6.6% in the old series," said Pravin Srivastava, Chief Statistician.
He added that the old and new GDP series are not comparable.
The GDP growth rate for 2008-09 - the year that witnessed the global financial crisis - was lowered to 3.1 per cent from 3.9 per cent in the previous estimate. For the following fiscal, the same was revised to 7.9 per cent from 8.5 per cent and for 2011-12, the growth was lowered to 5.2 per cent from 6.6 per cent.
In January 2015, the government moved to a new base year of 2011-12 from the earlier 2004-05 for national accounts. The base year of national accounts had been revised earlier in January 2010.
The so-called back-series data released Wednesday is in contrast to an August 2018 report by the Committee on Real Sector Statistics appointed by the National Statistical Commission (NSC), the autonomous body that helps in collection of data by India's statistical agencies.
In the report, which the government had subsequently stated was a draft seeking comments from stakeholders, the economy grew at a faster pace under the UPA government from 2004-05 to 2013-14, compared with the average growth during the first four years of the current government.
It had put the GDP growth at 10.08 per cent in 2006-07 under the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the highest since the liberalisation of the economy in 1991. The highest ever growth rate since Independence was stated to be at 10.2 per cent in 1988-89 when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister.
The committee's report has not been accepted and Kumar said the methodology adopted by them was flawed.
Giving reasons for divergence in the data sets, Srivastava said in the new series the share of primary sector in total Gross Value Added (GVA) is higher than that in the earlier 2004-05 series primarily due to changes in the data sources.
In the mining and quarrying sector, regular annual returns of public sector have been used instead of the Indian Bureau of Mines data in the 2004-05 base.
As per the CSO, the share of secondary sector in total GVA has increased in the back-series compared to the 2004-05 series. The increase is largely due to use of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) data and public sector data in organised electricity and manufacturing sectors, which was earlier sourced from annual reports of private electricity companies and annual survey of industries, respectively.
The share of the tertiary sector, which mainly includes services, in overall GVA has reduced in the back-series compared to the 2004-05 series.
