Amid Economic Slowdown, Govt May Set New Base Year for GDP in a Few Months

New Delhi: Amid an economic slowdown that has brought the GDP growth rate to a six-year low of just 5 per cent in April-June 2019, the central government is considering revising the base year for the GDP series in the next few months.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is mulling changing the base year to 2017-18 from the existing 2011-12, a senior official told news agency PTI. The decision will be finalised after a committee of experts goes through some more data and gives an 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 reporters at a FICCI conference 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 per cent in April-June this fiscal. The government has been taking steps to boost investment and perk up the sagging economy.

Regarding experts' views that industrial production for September will see a decline after core sector output contracted 5.2 per cent 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.