7.8% growth, but a Rs 6 lakh crore question: Why GDP data has sparked a debate

India’s GDP growth has beaten all estimates with a 7.8% number in the midst of the US-Iran war. But the government is under fire from opposition and even some experts who have raised doubts on the new calculation methodologies. Is India’s GDP growth number of 7.8% for real? Or is growth much lower?The hullabaloo rose when former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg questioned the downward revision of GDP data for previous quarters. He argued that had the last year numbers not been revised down, India’s GDP growth would have looked much lower!In February this year, the government revised the base year for GDP calculations from 2011-2012 to 2022-23. This led to a change in GDP and GDP growth data of previous quarters.