Anecdotal evidence and general impression might belie the claim by the Government that economic growth was higher under Prime Minister Narendra Modi than it was under the previous UPA regime. However, it is hard for laypersons to examine the veracity of these claims. For, data collection and collation requires expertise which not many people can claim to possess, certainly not the politicians who are quick to fight over it, boasting better economic numbers when they were in power than under the current regime.
Therefore, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s reaction, dismissing it as a bad joke came as no surprise. He was expected to dismiss the revised numbers without pausing for a moment to appreciate the reasoning behind it. Arrogance often proves the enemy of good sense. After all, the Central Statistics Office is an expert body, competent to study data and reach supportable conclusions. According to CSO, GDP grew at an average of 6.7 per cent in nine years of the UPA Government, from 2005-06 to 2013-14. On the other hand, under the NDA the corresponding figure is 7.3 per cent.
The back series has revised GDP numbers for all years with the new methodology, using the base year as 2011-12. The revision in August had shown four years of 9-plus growth beginning 2005-06; the latest revision concludes that in none of the UPA years did growth touch nine per cent. The downward revision in the UPA numbers is accounted for by lower growth in agriculture, mining and in the services sector. To cite an example how the revision has come up with lower growth in the UPA years, it is explained that it used the subscriber base in the telecom sector to determine growth in the old series, whereas in the back series the actual minutes of usage time was employed, a sound change.
The methodology has not been conjured up by someone like S Gurumurthy of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch. No. It has a sound footing in the specialization of Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics. The Niti Aayog was actively associated with the CSO in working out the new GDP numbers. To make data more comprehensive the input from wholesale to consumer price index was taken. In the financial sector, stock brokers, stock exchanges, mutual funds, provident funds were included. It is claimed that the latest methodology follows an accepted global model.
Now, the statisticians have done their job. Politicians are free to rubbish each other’s numbers without showing nary a respect for the genuine experts behind them. However, eventually, the empirical evidence of growth rests with the people, if they believe they were better off under the previous regime than the current regime has a perception problem which it ought to correct in order to get popular endorsement.
Editorial
