Arun Jaitley says the numbers are yet to be approved by the Advisory Committee on the National Accounts Statistics
The GDP back series data released last week is not a final estimate, Union Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday, countering efforts by Congress to use the numbers to defend its management of India's economy when it was in power.
He said the numbers are yet to be approved by the Advisory Committee on the National Accounts Statistics. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) also said in a release that the data was a draft based on one of possible calculation methods to arrive at a final one. MoSPI said it would announce the results when it settles on a final method. The numbers released on Friday had revealed that India's economy had grown in double digits during the tenure of the UPA under then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The National Statistics Commission also said the calculations were a work in progress.
The clarification came after Congress used the data to hit out at the Modi government for "losing the momentum provided by the UPA that clocked the highest decadal GDP growth of 8.13% since Independence from 2004-05 to 2013-14."
MoSPI said the recommendations of the NSC Committees would be examined further by experts to decide on the appropriate methodology to generate back series estimates for each sector.
Jaitley also blamed Singh's government for creating "macro instability resulting in poor quality of growth that showed in increasing current account deficit and spike in inflation to double digits.
Accusing Congress of jumping the gun and nitpicking, BJP said the data has not been accepted by the government as yet.
"It seems whenever Congress is unable to succeed, it starts celebrating its failures. During the UPA regimes, inflation was rising and they were unable to check current account deficit, whereas under the Narendra Modi government, India has become one of the six largest economies in the world, "said BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra.
Earlier Congress leader P Chidambaram said the average growth rate under the UPA-1 government was 8.87%, during which it also clocked double digit growth rate of 10.08% in 2006-07. Under the UPA-2 regime, it was 7.39%, whereas, during NDA-I and II, it was 5.68% and 7.33%, respectively, he said.
Claiming that "the UPA success story" lifted 140 million people out of poverty, Chidambaram blamed the Modi government for "frittering away the advantage because of demonetisation, flawed implementation of GST and tax terrorism."
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