New Delhi: India’s reported 7.8% GDP growth for the April–June quarter is under fresh scrutiny after a change in the statistical base and a big revision to last year’s national income data.
Former Finance and Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has questioned whether the 7.8% figure truly shows how fast the economy is growing, saying the new base makes it hard to compare with the past.
In an interview with Business Today, Garg said the real GDP number for the first quarter of last year was first released under the old series, but the revised number from the new series is now being used as the base to calculate growth for Q1 2026–27.
“I think this is a serious question which we should really examine. The growth 7.8% in this quarter on the face of it looks very good,” Garg said.
He said because of this change in base, the 7.8% should be read carefully, and that a clearer picture comes from looking at GDP growth at current, or nominal, prices.
“Therefore, comparing it with that base should be taken with a little bit of a pinch of salt. The better sort of analysis is done in terms of the GDP growth in current prices,” Garg said.
Current Prices, 2.5% Growth
Garg pointed to a sharp revision in the nominal GDP number for Q1 2025–26 as a key reason for his doubts.
He said the government’s latest data show nominal GDP growth for that quarter at 10.3%.
But he argued that if one uses the current-price GDP figure that was released last year — before the new series and base-year revision — the growth rate would be much lower.
“If you had taken the numbers which were put out last year as the GDP at current prices, the growth is less than 2.5% at current prices, nominal GDP,” he said.
Garg said this difference matters because the nominal growth rate changes a lot depending on whether the revised base or the old number is used.
In his view, the base change and the big revision to current-price GDP together raise doubts about whether 7.8% is a true picture of economic activity.
“These two factors give me a kind of little bit of a doubt about whether 7.8% is genuine or not,” he said.
GDP Cuts, Sectoral Shifts
In a separate interview with India Today, Garg said he accepts that moving to a new GDP series will naturally lead to some changes in the data.
He explained that a revised series can include new products and companies, while leaving out some that were counted earlier, which can alter the measured value of output.
For Garg, the issue is not that the numbers change, but the size of the revision and the absence of a clear explanation for it.
He said that if the new series results in a sharp drop in GDP, the government must spell out exactly what has changed.
His comments come as the 7.8% Q1 growth number sets off a wider debate, with critics and the government disagreeing over how much the new GDP series and revisions to last year’s data are affecting the figure.
