New GDP Base Year To Be Decided In A Few Months, Says Chief Statistician Of India

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation will decide on a new base year for the gross domestic product series in the next few months, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The ministry is working to bring in a new series of national accounts which would result in change in the existing base year of 2011-12.

Though the statistics ministry is considering 2017-18 as the new GDP base year, no decision has been taken as the committees of experts are awaiting some more data before finalising their opinion.

"The decision to change the base year (of GDP) would be taken in the next few months. We are waiting for Annual Survey of Industries and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. All the preparatory work is getting ready for that. Once the result is out, we will place it before the respective committees (to decide about the base year)," MOSPI Secretary and Chief Statistician of India, Pravin Srivastava, told reporters at a FICCI conference in New Delhi on Tuesday.

On why a new GDP base year is needed, Srivastava said the change in base year captures the change in structures of the economy. The decision has to be taken considering global and national scenario as well, he said.

According to Srivastava, earlier when the GDP new series with 2011-12 base year was being worked out, the ministry thought of revising it to 2009-10. But then economists decided that 2009-10 was not a good year globally and domestically and finalised 2011-12 as the base year for the new series.

On whether the economy will see recovery, Srivastava said it is too early to comment on it because a lot of inputs for tabulation depend upon Index of Industrial Production, Consumer Price Index and Wholesale Price Index, data for which would come in the first fortnight of November.

While IIP measures India's industrial growth, CPI and WPI measure retail inflation and wholesale inflation, respectively.

India's GDP growth slowed to a six-year-low of 5 percent in April-June quarter of 2019-20. The government has since then been taking steps to boost investment and spur growth in the economy.