Economic growth 2013-14 revised to 6.9 percent by base year change

New Delhi, Jan 30
The Indian government Friday revised the base year for computing national accounts resulting in the upward economic growth rate of 6.9 percent for 2013-14, according to an official statement.

The GDP estimates under the old method was 4.7 percent.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation has released the new series of national accounts, revising the base year from 2004-05 to 2011-12.

The base year of national accounts was last revised in January 2010.

According to the statement, base year revisions differ from annual revisions in national accounts primarily because of nature of changes.

"In annual revisions, changes are made only on the basis of updated data becoming available without making any changes in the conceptual framework or using any new data source, to ensure strict comparison over years," it said.

"In case of base year revisions, apart from a shift in the reference year for measuring the real growth, conceptual changes, as recommended by the international guidelines, are incorporated."

"Further, statistical changes like revisions in the methodology of compilation, adoption of latest classification systems, and, inclusion of new and recent data sources are also made. Changes are also made in the presentation of estimates to improve ease of understanding for analysis and facilitate international comparability," the government said.

As a result, the growth rate for 2012-13 has been changed to 5.1 percent under revised norms as against 4.5 percent estimated under the old values.

According to the statement, following the international practice, industry-wise estimates will be presented as gross value added (GVA) as basic prices, while GDP at market prices will henceforth be referred as GDP.