Why India's strong GDP growth is raising eyebrows

NEW DELHI: India's unexpectedly strong economic growth has sparked a debate after an ex-bureaucrat and a former central bank chief questioned whether the expansion was overstated and the government defended its numbers. The world's fifth-biggest economy grew 7.8% in the three months through June from the same quarter last year, government data showed on Monday, beating the 7.1% forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll as an investment boom and manufacturing strength added to solid consumer demand. What's the beef? Subhash Chandra Garg, formerly the top Finance Ministry bureaucrat, told Indian media that growth was inflated because the government had reduced its measure of gross domestic product for the year-earlier period, the basis of comparison. Raghuram Rajan, the former head of the Reserve Bank of India, asked why the robust GDP growth figure is not showing up in stronger results for job creation, domestic investment and foreign portfolio inflows. Some private economists have also questioned whether the deflator - a number calculated to strip out inflation from nominal GDP to show the "real" growth rate - understated inflation compared with other price indicators. The Bombay Stock Exchange logo is seen under a bull statue at the entrance of their building in Mumbai, India January 30, 2018. (Reuters) India's opposition seized on what was initially a social-media controversy to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, with a top Congress party official calling the 7.8% growth figure "statistical gymnastics". Modi's government has been under pressure since youth protesters prompted the education minister to resign in July, in what was seen as a broader expression of frustration over a lack of opportunities and jobs, as well as corruption in education. What does the government say? India's statistics ministry called a news conference on Wednesday evening to rebut the criticism from Garg, who wrote a book called "No, Minister" in 2025 about differences he had with the political leadership. A senior statistics official defended the government's changes in calculating GDP data, saying a shift in methodology implemented in February was the result of wide consultations. The change, which the government said was meant to more accurately reflect economic conditions, adopted a new data series that reduced the nominal value of GDP for April-June 2025 to 80 trillion rupees ($850 billion) from the 86.05 trillion rupees reported under the old GDP series. If Monday's GDP data had used the old base, nominal growth would have been just 2.6%, rather than the 10.3% reported by the government. But the government says simply comparing the two is not apples-to-apples. An India Rupee note is seen in this illustration photo June 1, 2017. (Reuters) The February change not only updated the base year by more than a decade, it also refined the sources of data and the goods and services included. Over the past three years, quarterly revisions have moved in both directions while changes on an annual basis have been relatively small, the statistics secretary told reporters in the briefing. On price adjustments, the government's April-June deflator was 2.3%, significantly less than retail inflation of more than 4% and wholesale inflation over 9%. The government says the new measure uses a globally accepted method of double deflation - separately adjusting the value of output and the cost of inputs for changes in prices. The statistics secretary said the new GDP series uses a more granular Producer Price Index, with more than 300 deflators for inputs and outputs, up from about 180 earlier. Does India’s data add up? The GDP data is in line with other high-frequency indicators suggesting India's economy is strong. Auto sales rose 21% in August, while bank credit is at a decade-high 19% and India's net direct tax revenue rose more than 23% year-on-year in the April-August period. By contrast, the Purchasing Managers' Index, a survey-based indicator, has weakened to multiyear lows. Economists are divided on the issue of the deflator. Mumbai-based ICICI Securities Primary Dealership said that while the deflator is below wholesale and consumer inflation, this is consistent with input-price pressures rising faster than output prices. Societe Generale economists, however, said the low deflator raises questions about the strength of real sector activity.