India’s statistics chief counts GDP data reform as success

{"text":[[{"start":8.6,"text":"For years, critics have said India’s GDP figures were overly optimistic. But new methodology shows allegations that the government has been flattering growth were unfounded, according to the statistics chief of the world’s fastest-growing large economy."}],[{"start":24.299999999999997,"text":"Some economists, including a former central bank governor, have said the previous real growth figures were flattered by the use of a low deflator. "}],[{"start":33.55,"text":"But Saurabh Garg, a career civil servant who was brought in two years ago by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to overhaul the national statistics ministry, said the reformed methodology showed growth was actually higher than previously reported for two of the past three fiscal years. The new methodology takes account of inflation differently and uses additional data sources. "}],[{"start":56.05,"text":"“If you look at all the three years together, [GDP growth] has been consistently over 7 per cent,” he said. “All the growth rates have only shown that the price indices that were being questioned were actually making it more conservative.”"}],[{"start":69.39999999999999,"text":"The new GDP series uses the 2022-23 fiscal year as its base year, rather than 2011-12. The one outlier for real growth under the new methodology was 2023-24, which was two percentage points lower than the old series, a divergence Garg dismissed as a “slight dip”."}],[{"start":88.14999999999999,"text":"It is not yet clear whether the overhaul will end longstanding doubts about India’s reported growth or suggestions it was overstated in recent years."}],[{"start":97.49999999999999,"text":"Shilan Shah, deputy chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, said the lack of a comparable data series going back more than a few years made it hard to assess structural trends. "}],[{"start":108.14999999999999,"text":"“The intention [of the changes] was absolutely correct, the execution has maybe left us wanting a bit more,” he said. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":115.05,"text":"The statistics ministry said it would issue more back-series data by the end of this year."}],[{"start":120.1,"text":"Arvind Subramanian, an economist and former chief economic adviser to the Indian government from 2014–18, said that “clearly the new series is an improvement in terms of utilising the new and more reliable data sources” but added that its use of a manufacturing deflator, which was negative, and an import deflator, which showed dramatic swings over three years, had puzzled experts."}],[{"start":144.25,"text":"“The jury is out because of these slightly inexplicable movements in two of the deflators,” he said."}],[{"start":150.3,"text":"Reforming GDP data is just a small part of the challenges Garg, 61, faces in modernising measurement in the world’s most populous country. "}],[{"start":158.95000000000002,"text":"The statistics ministry commands a small army of 8,000 enumerators in more than 160 regional offices. They upload 700 gigabytes of data a week to a secure government-administered cloud."}],[{"start":171.70000000000002,"text":"“There was some UN meeting going on and I mentioned that in our sample surveys, [the] minimum size is 100,000,” he recalled. “There was a collective gasp.”"}],[{"start":180.45000000000002,"text":"Modi has repeatedly called on bureaucrats to adopt data-driven decision-making as part of his drive to make India a developed nation by 2047. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":189.3,"text":"“A better administrator, a better public servant, will be one who possesses a strong understanding of technology and data,” the prime minister said last month.   "}],[{"start":197.85000000000002,"text":"Under Garg’s watch, numbers on the informal sector are now produced quarterly rather than annually. Rural labour market data is released monthly rather than annually. Data previously only available at national level is provided at state level, too."}],[{"start":213.05,"text":"Garg cites real-world examples of how data has informed decision-making. "}],[{"start":217.60000000000002,"text":"After employment data showed childcare commitments kept women out of the labour force, the government moved to create a network of hostels and crèches for working women. “That was based on how to increase the female labour participation and was data driven,” Garg said."}],[{"start":231.55,"text":"Garg said improved data also showed consumption expenditure by India’s poorest decile had more than doubled over the past 10 years as poverty has been reduced. “The proportion of expenditure on eggs, on dairy, on fruit has increased and the amount of expenditure on cereals has halved,” he said.  "}],[{"start":249.45000000000002,"text":"Garg’s latest push is to harmonise data across ministries and states and ensure it is all machine-readable. “Everyone realises that we need to be more timely in data,” Garg said. “We need to increase frequency, we need to increase granularity, we need to use technology.”"}],[{"start":267.75,"text":"Additional reporting by Jyotsna Singh in New Delhi and data visualisation by Haohsiang Ko"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":280.75,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780293851_7953.mp3"}