For years it has been argued that we need to have more contemporary base years to capture adequately the changes taking place in the economy. That has been accomplished with the new series for the GDP that has 2022-23 as the base year. It has a revamped basket of goods and services, relevant data sources, and uses the double-deflation approach. The last is important because normally all output is reckoned in nominal terms and then deflated to capture the price effect to arrive at the real numbers, which is what we look at when talking of growth. The double deflation process is one which does a similar process for inputs, too, thus giving a better picture of real output.

First, in terms of the economic outlook for the year, there has not been much change, with the 7.4% growth number for the year being revised to 7.6%. But as would be the case when new series are introduced, there are sharp changes in the growth rates for the earlier years, as they come down for FY24 from 9.2% to 7.2% and increase from 6.5% to 7.1% for FY25. But the story that we are on the 7% growth path is retained, and it does look like that the rate will be between 7 and 7.5% in FY27 too, notwithstanding the Iran-USA imbroglio.

The second interesting feature is the revaluation of nominal and real GDP in absolute terms. Whenever a new base year is taken, the absolute numbers are the same for nominal and real GDP,........

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