The findings turned out to be so unsatisfactory that two major reports prepared by NSSO based on them had to be subsequently scrapped.The disputable figures pertain to the MCA-21 database of companies of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. From January 2015, the CSO updated base year for GDP calculation to 2011-12, replacing the old series base year of 2004-05, as per NSSO's recommendations. A base year is carefully chosen because of the critical impact it has on data.The new series opted for the MCA-21 database, replacing the earlier source which used to RBI data on company finances. The shift was based on the idea that more detailed corporate sector info and better unorganised sector data points would make it a more watertight data set.After the change in the base year, previous several years' GDP numbers were revised to arrive at a fair comparison. Another big worry was the methodology, which many experts said would result in inflated estimates.The ministry was urged by many experts to first release the MCA-21 data to researchers to prevent faulty data points from impacting the final figures.

Source: Economic Times May 08, 2019 07:45 UTC