23 March 2024 – 16th Finance Commission Chair Arvind Panagariya dismissed claims that India’s unexpected economic growth of over 8% last quarter was manipulated.”If I fudged the GDP numbers to raise my growth by 2% this year, I will have to hide it by 2% next year…at this base, I will have to fudge it by 4% to get my growth numbers tallying,” the former Niti Aayog VC remarked at the BT Best Banks Awards.
“The experts turned out to be wrong in their forecasts by several miles,” he claimed. Some analysts believed GDP was ‘overstated’ due to a large gap between GDP and GVA growth rates. Can’t Only some tax revenue, he remarked. As an economist, it is absurd since tax revenues also produce production. Some tax revenue production is within Centre control.”
Conclusion
At the India Today Conclave, Subramanian remarked, “I can’t understand the latest GDP numbers. They are mystifying and don’t add up. For instance, the government reports 1-1.5% implied inflation, whereas real inflation is 3-5%. Panagariya blamed this culture velcro Velcro for bad news and Teflon Teflon for ‘happy news’ for such criticism. “Some people have recognised this and made it a business to stay in the limelight.”
