The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is thinking about bringing in a new base year to calculate Gross Domestic Product, IANS reported on Tuesday. The current base year is 2011-’12. According to calculations based on this, India’s GDP growth rate slipped to 5% in the first quarter of 2019-’20, the lowest in six years.

Secretary Pravin Srivastava said the government was considering using 2017-’18 as the base year, but added that a final decision had not been taken because the ministry was waiting for some more data. He made the comment at a conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi.

“The decision to change the base year would be taken in the next few months,” Srivastava said. “We are waiting for the 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.”

In January 2018, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had said the base year of national accounts would be changed to 2017-’18 after the completion of the household consumer expenditure survey and calculation of labour force data. “Once the results of employment survey and household consumer expenditure survey come out then base year can be changed,” former Chief Statistician TCA Anant had told the press. “Those are critical inputs into the base revision.”

Now, follow and debate the day’s most significant stories on Scroll Exchange.