Mospi to issue GDP back-series data by year-end

Under pressure from the Reserve Bank of India, Asian Development Bank and others, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi) is to come out speedily with back-years’ data of revised gross domestic product (GDP).

“Definitely by the year-end,” according to a source in the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The data would be available from 1999-2000, much speedier than earlier. When a series was revised in 2010, with the base year changed from 1999-2000 to 2004-05, it took the government two and a half years to come out with the new series of earlier data.

This time, the issue becomes more important since not only was the base year changed from 2004-05 to 2011-12 but the methodology of deriving GDP, as well as sourcing of the data has changed drastically.

Earlier, industrial data was primarily taken from the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and later from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). Now, the industrial figures are based on company filings in MCA21, the ministry of corporate affairs’ e-governance initiative, among other sources. IIP constitutes only 24 per cent of industrial data.

When asked how sourcing would be done for back-year data, as MCA21 is available only from 2007 and without the entire set of figures, the source said this would be a challenge but CSO would manage the reconciliation.

The back series assumes importance since there is no way to compare the recent GDP growth over a long series. When everyone was worried over lacklustre economic growth rates, the new GDP figures were issued on the revised method, with the growth rate was revised to 5.1 per cent from the earlier 4.5 per cent for 2012-13 and 6.9 per cent from the earlier 4.7 per cent for 2013-14. Besides, advance estimates have pegged economic growth for 2014-15 at 7.4 per cent and the Economic Survey has projected 8.1-8.5 per cent for 2015-16.

GDP growth is now being calculated at market prices, which include indirect taxes net of subsidies. The earlier approach was based on GDP at factor cost, which excludes indirect taxes but includes subsidies. Besides, an enterprise approach was taken to calculate most of the manufacturing output. Till now, only the establishment approach was used, which means calculating unit by unit production.

On the other hand, in the enterprises approach, the activities at headquarters are taken into account. For instance, after an item is produced, various marketing and sales promotion efforts go on at the headquarters. In the new GDP data, the establishment approach is still used for small companies as they have a few plants or sometimes a single plant. But, for large companies, the enterprises approach is used.