Q1 GDP growth "difficult to accept" but S. C. Garg is "conceptually illogical" and completely wrong: former Chief Statistician, Pronab Sen, to Karan Thapar for The Wire.

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Today we focus on the recently released Q1 GDP figure. It’s created a storm of controversy. So we ask is the 7.8% figure credible or, as former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has said, should it be 2.6%? Beyond that why do we frequently overestimate GDP growth? And how accurately are we calculating GDP? My guest is the one man who should know the answers to these questions, India’s former Chief Statistician, Pronab Sen.

In the interview, Prof. Sen suggests that for the next five years the government should issue GDP growth figures according to two separate series, one that uses the old series as the base a ...