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Informist, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Monday released a comprehensive and consolidated account of the concepts, definitions, data sources, methodologies and compilation practices adopted in India's new series of National Accounts Statistics. These include GDP, national income, private final consumption expenditure, gross fixed capital formation and savings. 

 

The new series of national accounts statistics with base year 2022-23 was released on Feb. 27 and subsequently updated on Aug. 31 to incorporate the changes on account of the new series of Producer Price Index, Index of Industrial Production, among others, released in June. The new series replaced the earlier series with base year 2011-12 and represents the eighth base year revision of India's National Accounts Statistics.

 

The report comes following heavy debate by critics and opposition leaders after the release of India's higher-than-expected GDP growth rate of 7.8% in the June quarter, demanding greater transparency and methodological clarity. They had sought for the government to release the complete "Sources and Methods" document, exactly explaining how the GDP is calculated and more importantly, revised, among other issues.

 

Under the new methodology, the ministry has modernised estimation methodologies for the corporate, financial, government, and household sectors. It has also made detailed use of corporate filings, Limited Liability Partnership records, and enhanced company-level information to improve industry classification, measurement of economic activity, and allocation of output across multiple business segments for the non-financial private corporate sector. 

 

The data coverage for the financial sector has been considerably expanded, with the coverage for the general government sector increasing to institutional coverage, refinement of the treatment of pension payments, and incorporation of the value of housing facilities provided to employees, according to MoSPI. In the household sector, after evaluating several alternative methodologies, direct estimation from two surveys of MoSPI, namely, Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises and Periodic Labour Force Survey has been adopted, it added. 

 

The ministry has also made changes to the expenditure-side estimates and quarterly GDP compilation. "Private Final Consumption Expenditure has adopted the Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose 2018 classification framework of UN, supported by more detailed consumption data and administrative sources," it said.

 

In order to ensure greater consistency in the estimation of economic activity to reflect recent economic realities and improved data availability, MoSPI has tweaked compilation methodologies for industries, such as, construction, agriculture, livestock, forestry and services. It has also replaced the existing benchmarking method with the Proportional Denton approach for quarterly national accounts and enhanced use of goods and services tax and other administrative data. 

 

The report also includes the methodology for compilation of supply use tables and guidelines for regional accounts. "Overall, the report lays the methodological foundation for a more robust, transparent, and data-driven national accounting framework that better captures the evolving structure of the Indian economy," MoSPI said.

 

The fresh methodology was formed after deliberations by the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, constituted by MoSPI on Jun. 27, 2024 under the chairmanship of BN Goldar, visiting faculty at the Institute of Economic Growth. End

 

Reported by Pratiksha

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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