Overview
- The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released national accounts showing real GDP growth of 7.8% for Q1 under a rebased 2022–23 series, with nominal GDP up about 10.3% and real GVA rising 8.2%.
- A technical revision lowered the previous-year current-price Q1 figure by more than ₹6 lakh crore and critics say mixing old and new series yields a misleading 2.6% nominal rise, which statisticians say is an invalid comparison of different series.
- Senior government statisticians and the chief economic adviser publicly defended the 7.8% print, pointing to the quarter’s timing relative to an external energy shock and to strong high-frequency signals such as GST receipts, bank credit, exports, manufacturing and investment.
- Former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and some economists questioned the headline’s credibility and whether the expansion is reaching ordinary people, citing weak job and income outcomes and distributional data showing the bottom half of households capture a small share of national income.
- The dispute has widened into a policy debate over measurement: new methods such as double-deflation and richer data sources aim to better capture informal and digital activity but require transparent reconciliation of revisions and may prompt calls for broader modernisation of national accounts.