Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said, the new GDP series is more broad-based and is a better reflection of the Indian economy and is globally more comparable.
Talking to reporters, Mr Jaitley said, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, changed the way of calculating Gross Domestic Product, GDP in 2015. He said, GDP growth rate estimates were revised from the year 2012-13 onwards with 2011-12 being the base year.
On Congress leader and Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s questioning credibility of new GDP data, Mr Jaitley said, those who hailed the new series in 2015, now consider the backward extension of this series as a hatchet job and a bad joke.
He said, when the new GDP estimates were given, Mr. Chidambaram publicly welcomed the new series.
Mr Jaitley said, Mr Chidambaram had said that the new data successfully establishes the fact that UPA succeeded to revive the economy.
The Niti Aayog had yesterday announced the back-series data. The new numbers show India’s economic growth rate averaged 6.7 per cent during the Congress-led UPA regime as compared to 7.3 per cent under the present government.
Previous numbers had put the average growth rate during the 10-year UPA rule at 7.75 per cent.
