Congress, Left Misleading Public on GDP Growth: Lanka Dinakar
He said the selection of 2022–23 as the new base year was not a political decision, but a recommendation made by the advisory committee on National Accounts Statistics after examining various years.
Visakhapatnam:Lanka Dinakar, chairman, Twenty Points Programme (Viksit Bharat – Swarna Andhra Pradesh) Implementation, criticised Congress leaders, Left sympathisers and those opposed to the Narendra Modi government for creating confusion among the public over GDP statistics.
Addressing a press conference in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, Dinakar said combining the old 2011–12 GDP series with the new 2022–23 series to portray the official 7.8 per cent GDP growth as 2.6 per cent was political propaganda intended to mislead the public.
“Growth must be calculated on the basis of a single GDP series, a single base year, a consistent methodology, and comparable prices,’’ Dinakar said. He said taking the 2025–26 figures from the 2011–12 series and the 2026–27 figures from the 2022–23 series, and presenting the difference between them as “actual GDP growth,” was not scientifically valid.
He said the selection of 2022–23 as the new base year was not a political decision, but a recommendation made by the advisory committee on National Accounts Statistics after examining various years. He said the committee considered factors such as the implementation of GST, the impact of Covid-19 and the post-Covid recovery before treating 2022–23 as a relatively normal year.
Dinakar said there had been significant changes in India’s economy between 2011–12 and 2026, with progress in manufacturing, the digital economy, e-commerce, financial services, infrastructure, technology and formalisation of businesses.
“Congress may criticise the policies of the Union government. That is its democratic right. However, changing statistical standards to suit political opposition is not acceptable,” he said.