Why do GDP figures face a controversy in India?

The story so far: In a fiercely contested polity, the state of the economy is a hotly debated topic. In the past decade or so, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate has been presented by the Union Government as reflecting its prudent management of the economy, while the Opposition, led by the Congress, accuses it of gaming the system.

Editorial | of the financial year 2026-27, quicker than the 6.9% recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2025-26. “India’s exemplary GDP growth of 7.8% during Q1 of FY 2026-27 is a herculean feat. The collective strength of our people ensured India delivered such growth despite oil price shocks and supply chain issues in the midst of global uncertainties,” Prime Minister

Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said the key message was that “we are witnessing continued resilience in the Indian growth performance,” and this resilience was backed up by high-frequency indicators.

Soon the cheers dissolved into a murky controversy as former Finance Secretary Saurabh Garg alleged that the nominal GDP growth rate was a lowly 2.6%, and not 10.3%. Adjusted for 2-2.5% inflation, the real growth rate would be zero, he said. Mr. Garg took the GDP of the first quarter of 2025 using the base year of 2011-12 and that of the corresponding 2026 figure calculated using the base year of 2022-23 to arrive at the figure.

On September 1, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said the government’s claim of robust economic growth, amplified through what he described as statistical “jugglery”, was at odds with the conditions on the ground. In an interview with The Hindu, when asked if the response to his allegation from the Ministries of Statistics and Programme Implementation and Finance, which appear to be technically defensible, will close the credibility gap, Mr. Garg said, "The response on the issue of GDP reduction is only officialese and obfuscatory. It sheds no light.”

What is the back-series controversy that broke out in 2018?

The Central Statistical Organisation released the GDP growth for previous years using the new base year and methodology adopted in 2015, bringing down the figure for the years when the United Progressive Alliance was in power. It said the UPA years averaged a 6.7% growth as against the 8.7% and 6.7% estimated using the older method in the two terms when the alliance was in power. The Modi government recorded an average 7.35% in the first four years of its term that started in 2014, it said.Earlier that year, the National Statistical Commission showed growth crossing 9% on at least four occasions during the UPA years, hitting 10.78% in 2010-11. The average during its first term was about 8.4%, and during the second, 7.7%.

This touched off a political storm. Veteran Congress leader P. Chidambaram tweeted, “NITI Aayog’s revised GDP numbers are a joke. They are a bad joke. Actually they are worse than a bad joke. The numbers are the result of a hatchet job.”

Arun Jaitley, who was the Finance Minister then, shot back: “The CSO is a highly credible organisation; it maintains an arm’s-length distance from the Finance Ministry. In fact, we also come to know of the data only when it is released.” He said all those who headed the CSO are of the same opinion that “this data is far more inclusive and far more reflective of the situation of the Indian economy and therefore has far greater credibility.”

What did Arvind Subramanian say that triggered a row?

In 2019, just a year after the back-series row, Arvind Subramanian, who had been the Chief Economic Adviser from October 2014 to June 2018, said India’s GDP growth from 2011-12 to 2016-17 was likely to have been overestimated, and the tag of the fastest-growing major economy may not hold. In a research paper, “India’s GDP misestimation: Likelihood, magnitudes, mechanisms, implications”, published by Harvard University, he argued that GDP growth during that period was 4.5% rather than 7%.

In response, the Statistics and Programme Implementation Ministry said the methodology adopted to calculate GDP growth was in line with international standards set by the United Nations and was robust.

Why were GDP growth estimates revised in 2015?

The government revised the 2013-14 GDP growth estimate to 6.9% from 4.7%. The 2012-13 growth estimate was revised to 5.1% from 4.5%. This followed the change in the base year for calculating national accounts to 2011-12 from 2004-05.

In case of base year revisions, apart from a shift in the reference year for measuring the real growth, conceptual changes, as recommended by the international guidelines, are incorporated, an official release said then.

Mr. Chidambaram then said the data released showed that the 10 years of the UPA government recorded the highest decadal growth since Independence. “The data released today and the other economic indicators conclusively establish that the UPA government succeeded in substantial measure on fiscal consolidation, containing the current account deficit, moderating inflation and putting the economy back on the growth path… It should put an end, once and for all time, to the misconceived charge that the UPA government had mismanaged the economy,” he said.

“The direction and quantum of revisions show two things — growth delivered by the Manmohan Singh government was stronger than estimated earlier, and the fiscal consolidation was tighter,” Saumitra Chaudhuri, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, told The Hindu at that time.