New reality: On new series of national accounts data
Fiscal targets will now be realigned based on more accurate data
The release of the new series of national accounts data is a heartening improvement to India’s key economic statistics, but the data highlights some aspects that merit policy attention. The new series updates the base year of India’s Gross Domestic Product and Gross Value Added data to 2022-23 from the earlier 2011-12. This was a long-overdue update, since the earlier data was becoming more outdated and unrepresentative with each passing year. Apart from the updated base year, the new series has several methodological improvements and new data sources for greater robustness. For example, the adoption of the double-deflator approach, which accounts for the effect of inflation separately for intermediate goods and the final product, is a marked improvement in terms of ascertaining the real value added of India’s production. Similarly, the new series allocates multi-sector company output proportionately, improving sectoral data accuracy. The data on households will now be obtained from the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) and Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) on an annual basis instead of relying on extrapolations as was done in the 2011-12 series. Notably, the Goods and Services Tax data, a goldmine of consumer data, will be used in the new series. The new series will also include new sources and methods of estimation for sectors that have historically been difficult to quantify such as the agricultural sector and the vast informal sector. All of these should yield a more accurate picture of India’s economic size and growth.