NEW DELHI: If GDP growth remains the criteria, the Indian economy remained at its best under the UPA government, registering double-digit growth twice, the new GDP calculation has revealed. According to the new back series GDP data released by the Ministry of Statistics, taking 2011-12 as the base year, the Indian economy has achieved double-digit growth once in 2007-08 at 10.23 per cent and then in 2010-11 at 10.78 per cent. As per the old data, the growth in 2007-08 was 9.80 per cent; it was 10.26 per cent in 2010-11.
In the UPA-1 regime (2004-09), India’s GDP growth was consistently over 8 per cent, which slowed down during the financial crisis in 2008-09, but soon reverted to 8 per cent.The data also revealed that India was quick to recover from the aftermath of global meltdown, depicting the resilience of the Indian economy despite high crude oil prices and negative global sentiments. The economic growth, however, fell drastically after 2010-11. The economic growth in the following years was 6.96 per cent, 5.46 per cent and 6.39 per cent respectively, combined with a series of corruption cases, which induced what economists termed as “policy paralysis” in the UPA-2.
“Based on these adjustments, the Central Statistics Office has estimated the growth rates of GVA /GDP estimates from 2004-05 to 2011-12 at current and constant prices. However, they are tentative estimates and need to be deliberated on by the Advisory Committee of National Accounts Statistics. Hence, these estimates are not being presented in this report,” the report said.
The base year of calculation of national accounts is revised periodically in order to adjust to structural changes and to reflect the true picture of the macro-economy of the country. The earlier base year was 2005-06. In 2014, Pronab Sen, chairman of National Statistical Commission, advised to revise the new series of national accounts with 2011-12 as the base year, including more sectors. This year, the Ministry of Statistics has again changed the base year for GDP and IIP calculation to 2017-18.