New base year for GDP to be decided in a few months

The Ministry
of Statistics and Programme Implementation will decide on a new base year for
the GDP series in a 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
ministry is considering 2017-18 as the new 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 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 Pravin Srivastava told adding that
the decision has to be taken considering global and national scenario as well.

He also said
that earlier when new series with 2011-12 base year was being worked out, the
ministry thought of revising it to 2009-10.

But then the
economists decided that 2009-10 was not a good year globally and domestically
and finalised 2011-12 as the base year for new series of GDP.

On whether
the economy will see recovery he said, it is too early to comment on it because
lot of inputs for tabulation depend upon the IIP (index of industrial
production), CPI and WPI data, which would come in the first fortnight of
November.

The economic
growth slowed to over six-year low of 5% in April-June period of this fiscal.
The government has been taking steps to boost investment and to bring up the sinking
economy.

Regarding
expert’s views that industrial production for September will see a decline
after core sector output contracted 5.2% during the month, Srivastava said,
“We do not speculate data. We wait for data to come because the data will
tell us.”

When asked
about the need for new GDP base year, he said the change in base year actually
captures the change in structures of the economy.