Centre Establishes Committee To Decide Base Year For GDP Revision

The ministry issued the terms of reference for the committee, such as ‘review the existing databases and advise on the inclusion of new data sources for improving the estimates of National Accounts’

The previous committee suggested 2020-21 as the base year for GDP.

The Centre established a 26-member committee to evaluate the base year for GDP. The government said that the committee would decide the alignment of GDP with other indices such as the wholesale prce index, or the index of industrial production, etc.

These indices are used for calculating several economic indicators in the country. For instance, the wholesale price index is used to gauge wholesale inflation level, while the consumer price index is used to understand the consumer inflation figures. The index of industrial production is used to calculate the industrial growth in the economy.

The decision to form the committee has been taken by The Ministry of Statistics and Programme implementation (MoSPI), reported Moneycontrol. Biswanath Goldar, former professor of the Institute of Economic Growth, has been named the chairman of The Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS).

The ministry also issued the terms of reference for the committee, such as ‘review the existing databases and advise on the inclusion of new data sources for improving the estimates of National Accounts’. It added that the committee would also provide advise on the compilation and presentation of national accounts.

Currently, the government doesn’t provide seasonally adjusted accounts, in turn, making it difficult to make comparisons of quarterly growth.

The ministry informed that the committee will have a tenure of five years or till the completion of the next base year, whichever is later.

In terms of the committee’s responsibilities, the ministry said, “To advise on the methodology for compilation and presentation of National Accounts Statistics for purposes of economic analysis and policy including methodology for seasonal adjustment of quarterly national accounts and on the promotion of research in the field of National Accounts Statistics.” The previous committee suggested 2020-21 as the base year for GDP.