oppn parties Economic Data Should Not Be Window Dressed

News Snippets

  • RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat calls for one temple, one well and one crematorium to do away with deep divisions in the hindu society
  • Staff unrest plagues craft beer manufacturer Bira as current and formaer employess allege delays in salary and other payments
  • Intel appoints India-origin Sachin Katti as CTO & AI chief
  • Sebi says there is no manufacturing activity reported from Gensol's EV plant in Pune
  • Shooting WC: Former world champion drops to last in 10m air rifle individual event as his rifle malfunctions
  • Shooting World Cup: Arjun Babuta misses gold by 0.1 pont, settles for silver in 10m air rifle while Radrankksh Patil and Arya Borse win silver in 10m air rifle mixed event
  • IPL: MI beat CSK as Rohit Sharma (76 no) and Suryakumar Yadav (68 no) make short work of PKBS bolwers. CSK, with 2 points from 8 matches, have reached a point of no return in this years' competition
  • IPL: RCB beat PKBS by 7 wickets as Virat Kohli (73 no) and D Padikkal (61) sizzle
  • After Bangladesh commented on the riots in bengal over the Waqf bill, the Indian government has asked it protect the minorities in its own country and stop commenting on India's internal affairs
  • PM Modi discussed collaboration in technical and innovation fields with Tesdla owner Elon Musk, who is visiting India before the imminent entry of his firm Starlink in the country
  • Murshidabad returning to normal after clashes over the Waqf bill, internet restored, curfew lifted
  • The murder of a 17-year-old boy sparked protests in Delhi's north-east area Seelampur
  • Allahabad HC stayed the demolition of a mosque in UP's Fatehpur after the district authorities order for razing it was challenged by the Masjid Waqf committee
  • Hyderabad Police pick up an alleged fraud accused from a hotel in Kolkata but Kolkata Police not kept in the loop. Relatives of the man file a missing complaint and FIR
  • An ICU technician was held in Gurugram's Medanta Hospital for sexually assaulting a patient
RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat calls for 'one temple, one well',as well as one crematorium, to end caste differences
oppn parties
Economic Data Should Not Be Window Dressed

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2018-12-01 08:57:22

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
It needs to be recognized that modern economy – in fact, even society – is increasingly being driven by data. Hence, it is imperative that data collection, analysis and presentation are robust, timely and credible. Since the Indian economy is in the top six in the world and growing at a good rate, both domestic and international investors look to invest here and their decisions are largely based on sectoral data and related policy decisions of the government. The government also takes policy decisions based on economic data.

Hence, frequent tinkering with back data confuses economists and investors and is not good for generating inflow of funds in the economy or for formulating policy. The NDA government has shifted the base year for calculations from 2004-05 to 2011-12. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong in this as it brings data closer to current prices given that inflation skews the figures over time, the effects have triggered a political row. The new set of back data show that the growth rate during the first four years of UPA I & II was 6.7%, much lower than the earlier figure of 8.1% (with 2004-05 as base) and lower than the 7.4% achieved under NDA in the last four years (with 2011-12 as base).

Periodic updating of the base year is necessary and is done in all economies across the globe. It is not as if the UPA growth rate has been rubbished by the new set of data. Those who understand economics, statistics and data will always talk about growth rates as per the base year from which they are calculated. Hence, there is no need for political squabbling. But it also needs to be stressed that frequent tinkering with data, window dressing figures and presenting them in slanted way is not proper and should be avoided at all costs.