SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth | SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) | Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) | National Statistics Office (NSO)
The Sub-Committee on Constant Price Estimates, established under the ACNAS, has finalized a comprehensive set of recommendations for the revision of the National Accounts Statistics (NAS) base year to 2022–23. This revision is designed to ensure that India’s macroeconomic indicators—such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA)—remain robust, relevant, and reflective of a rapidly evolving digital and green economy.
Key improvements include the transition toward double deflation for stable manufacturing categories and the widespread adoption of volume extrapolation across sectors like mining, transport, and financial services to better capture real growth.
On the expenditure side, the committee has recommended more disaggregated Consumer Price Index (CPI) usage for private consumption and asset-specific deflators for capital formation, aligning India’s statistical framework with international best practices and ensuring long-term fiscal stability.
Core Recommendations for the 2022–23 Base Year Revision
Production-Side Modernization: Adopting double deflation for manufacturing and volume extrapolation for electricity (separating renewable vs. non-renewable).
Disaggregated Expenditure Tracking: Utilizing CPI at a more granular item level for Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) to improve accuracy.
Enhanced Service Sector Metrics: Using sector-specific indicators (passenger kilometers, cargo handled) for transport and volume extrapolation for deposit-taking corporations.
Public Sector Wage Deflation: Switching from CPI (General) to CPI (Industrial Workers) for deflating the compensation of employees in public administration and defense.
External Sector Refinement: Implementing the Unit Value Index (UVI) for goods and partner country Producer Price Indices (PPI) for service imports to capture global price shifts.
The Sub-Committee on Constant Price Estimates and the Sub-Committee on Methodological Improvements are two of the five specialized sub-committees established under the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) to manage the 2022–23 base year revision.
While both reports work toward the unified release of the new GDP series on February 27, 2026, they focus on different “technical layers” of the national accounting framework:
How the Two Reports Connect (The “Full Picture”)
The two reports are fundamentally interdependent: the Methodological Improvements report determines “what and how much” is being produced in today’s rupees, while the Constant Price Estimates report determines “how to strip away price changes” to understand how much that output has actually grown since the base year.
Complementary Redressal: For example, while the “Methodological” report improves the PFCE (Private Consumption) estimation using the HCES survey, the “Constant Price” report ensures that this consumption is deflated using a more granular, disaggregated CPI.
Unified Benchmarking: Both sub-committees have worked to ensure that Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) are perfectly aligned with Annual Accounts (ANA) through the use of the Denton-proportional method and consistent volume indicators.
What is “Double Deflation”? Double deflation is a more accurate method of calculating a sector’s real Gross Value Added (GVA) by separately deflating the value of total output and the value of intermediate inputs using their respective price indices. This differs from “single deflation,” which often deflates only the output or the input. By adopting double deflation for stable manufacturing categories with adequate price data, the 2022–23 revision ensures that fluctuations in input costs (such as raw material prices) do not distort the perceived real growth of a sector, providing a clearer picture of industrial productivity.
Policy Relevance
For India, the 2022–23 revision represents a transition from “Static Extrapolation” to “Dynamic Volume-Based Accuracy,” ensuring that the national balance sheet reflects the structural shifts in the energy and service sectors.
Standardizing Green Energy Tracking: Separating renewable from non-renewable electricity in volume extrapolation acts as a “Standard Maker” move, allowing policymakers to precisely track the real contribution of India’s green energy transition.
Bypassing Consumption Distortions: Treating food subsidies as “social transfers in kind” instead of pure expenditure ensures that the Government Final Consumption Expenditure (GFCE) reflects actual social justice outcomes.
Operationalizing Regional Growth Data: Using state-wise quantum indices for the forestry and fishing sectors ensures that local economic variations are captured within the national aggregate.
Federal Wage Alignment: Adopting CPI (IW) for public sector wages ensures that the “Real Value” of government services is aligned with the actual cost-of-living increases faced by industrial and public workers.
Implementation Fidelity via Quarterly Alignment: Aligning Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) methodologies with Annual Accounts (ANA) ensures that high-frequency data is as reliable as the audited annual figures.
Follow the full report here: REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE FOR CONSTANT PRICE ESTIMATES