After Congress discarded the GDP series, Union Finance Minister on Thursday defended the data. Jaitley said, “This data revised the GDP growth in the last two years of UPA government. At that time, revision had made the GDP grow upwards, many in then government welcomed the change in methods”, he said.
Stating that the new series is more transparent, he further stated, “In February 2015, the CSO worked on a new formula with 2011-12 as the base year and a new GDP series was announced. This new series is globally more comparable, takes into account greater representation & is more reflective of the state of the economy”.
However, former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and termed ‘Niti Aayog’ as ‘worthless body’ as the Centre on Wenesday slashed UPA-era growth rate.
The government lowered the country’s economic growth rate during the previous Congress-led UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus percent expansion.
“Niti Aayog’s revised GDP numbers are a joke. They are a bad joke. Actually, they are worse than a bad joke. The numbers are the result of a hatchet job. Now that Niti Aayog has done the hatchet job, it is time to wind up the utterly worthless body,” said Chidambaram in a series of tweets.
Stating that the earlier numbers were calculated by the National Statistical Commission, Chidambaram questioned if the Commission been disbanded?
“Former Chief Statistician Pranab Sen is absolutely correct. Niti Aayog has nothing to do with tabulation of data. I wonder if Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar will agree to a debate the data than telling journalists that their questions are ‘undeserving of an answer’,” Chidambaram added.
