The creation of a back series of the new series of national accounts is posing a challenge due to lack of sufficient data on the corporate sector
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, which is working on creating the back series, is finding it difficult to get data comparable to that available in the MCA21 database. “In the past what was available was relatively small samples of companies. It is a major statistical challenge and we are trying to see if a very small sample can be used to replicate what is now a very large group,” said TCA Anant, the country’s Chief Statistician and Secretary, MOSPI. Launched in 2006, the MCA21 database has records of over five lakh companies in the manufacturing and services sector with their annual reports.
For the new series of gross domestic product with a base year of 2011-12 and a revised methodology that it released from January 2015 onwards, the CSO had logged into the database to get information on the corporate sector, including manufacturing and service sector firms as well as limited liability partnership.
At the time, the CSO had also provided a comparable back series for the new GDP series till 2013-14 and had promised that it would initiate an exercise for a longer back series. A back series is expected to help analysts and private statisticians compare the new GDP series with the old series that had a base year of 2004-05 to understand the reasons for the wide variation in growth.
For instance, the advance estimates for 2014-15 that was based on the new series had pegged GDP growth in the fiscal at 7.4 per cent against the expectation of 5.4-5.9 per cent growth in the Economic Survey, which was based on the earlier series. Analysts had termed this divergence puzzling and the government had promised to release a back series with comparable data.
However, if the back series is launched without comprehensive on the corporate sector, it may not be useful. “We would like to get older data from a back series to put the 2011-12 series into context. However, if the older data is not of a comparable nature, then it may not clarify the assessment,” said Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist, ICRA.