After questions were raised on the GDP numbers announced yesterday, the government is in damage control mode. It is likely to revise the GDP at market prices. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee says this revised figure will be made public soon.
“What the central statistics office (CSO) gives as a figure, gets corrected sometimes. There's no doubt in it because these are on the basis of random surveys. Therefore there are some errors here and there. The revised figure will be given. Some criticism has been made about the fact that the projection from the demand side is not matching and the growth from that has been projected and that will have to be addressed.”
Former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen said, "The estimates that we make from the production side are in fact very accurate so there is no issue with the 8.8% growth. The difference has actually arisen out of a statistical issue, which is that two different prices are used to get the constant figure. In the case of the production side number we use the WPI, in the case of the expenditure side we use the consumer price index. Now normally the difference between the two indices is about 2% points or so but in this particular quarter as well all know the difference was nearly 8% to 9% and that what’s causing the problem."
