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June 29, the birth anniversary of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, is National Statistics Day.

The former Reserve Bank of India governor, Raghuram Rajan, recently questioned India’s economic growth narrative, arguing that weak corporate investment and slowing foreign capital inflows were difficult to reconcile with official Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures showing the economy expanding at more than 7%. 

Leaving aside the current investment scenario or its lag-factor with actual production, it is worthwhile to examine the growth aspect from the perspective of measurement. We need to look, particularly, at the backdrop of two underlying and major methodological changes – double deflation and non-agriculture unorganised segment methodology – of the current estimation process.

On February 27, 2026, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released GDP and other related aggregates on the updated base year 2022-23. While the use of double deflation has been cited, inter alia, as a reason for data revision vis-a-vis the old series, it is also stated that the constant price estimates would be revised after the base-change of Wholesale Price Index (WPI)/Producer Price Index (PPI) and Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which were then under process. 

WPI and output PPI on base 2022-23 have since been released by the Office of the Economic Adviser. However, the monthly trial input PPIs (Goods) are being published in respect of March 2026 onwards only for manufacturing sector and that too on experimental basis, so that “…the publication of Trial Input PPI would enable the Department to examine the data quality and also receive feedback of stakeholders and users”.

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