This, a part of a broader revision of economic statistics aimed at improving accuracy, will incorporate more granular indicators that better capture post-pandemic shifts in consumption and the rapid expansion of the digital economy.
Other economic data revisions: Earlier this month, the government released Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation data for January, marking the first reading under the new CPI series with base year 2024.
Also Read: India’s retail inflation at 2.75% in January as housing, services gain weight in CPI basket
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) said the revision updates the inflation basket using the latest household consumption survey and fresh market data to better reflect current spending patterns and improve accuracy.
Similarly, the new Index of Industrial Production (IIP) series with base year 2022–23, a key measure of changes in industrial output, is slated for release on May 28, 2026, as part of efforts to update the data and keep it aligned with the revised national accounts framework.
Here’s a closer look at what is changing with the GDP, why the revisions are being undertaken, and how the new framework will take shape:What is changing?
The government is overhauling how it measures GDP to better reflect India’s transformed economy.
The base year is being updated from 2011-12 to 2022-23 to capture new industries like digital services and renewable energy, shifts in consumption, and changes in investment patterns.
Methodological improvements are being introduced across sectors: manufacturing and services will now use more recent techniques to remove the impact of price changes, while the informal and gig economies will be better captured using surveys, GST data, and other high-frequency indicators.
Quarterly GDP estimates will also be improved with a new benchmarking method, the Proportional Denton method, which aligns quarterly numbers with annual totals without creating artificial jumps, ensuring that short-term economic trends are preserved.
Moreover, food subsidies, previously counted under product subsidies, will now be treated as transfers in kind. The new series will use net Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, including cess, instead of gross GST and compensation cess, while state excise, union excise, sales tax, and Customs duty will be reflected using their respective actual values.
Overall, the revisions aim to make India’s GDP statistics more accurate, detailed, and representative of the real economy.
Why is the base year being updated now, and how frequently will it be revised?
“We would have had this revision earlier, but there were some important economic changes that happened in the country. First GST got introduced, and then Covid intervened,” Saurabh Garg, secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, said in an interview to Forbes India.
In November 2025, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) outlined the methodological weaknesses for India’s national accounts statistics and assigning it “C” rating, which reflects that data provided to the fund have some shortcomings that somewhat hamper surveillance.
Garg said, the revision is being undertaken now because more updated and reliable data are available to better reflect the changing structure of India’s economy, and added that “we hope to do it (the base year revisions) every five years or so.”
These include the latest Household Consumption and Expenditure Survey (HCES), the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Annual Survey of Industries and the All-India Debt and Investment Survey, which together provide a more current picture of consumption, employment and business activity.
In addition, the government is increasingly drawing on administrative data sources such as Goods and Services Tax (GST) data, the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), e-Vahan vehicle registration data and petroleum sector data to improve coverage and accuracy, helping ensure that national accounts better capture structural shifts across sectors.
What will the new revisions capture?
At the heart of the overhaul is a shift to “double deflation”, a method that separately adjusts input and output prices to measure real value added more accurately. This is expected to improve estimates, especially in manufacturing, where differences between input and output prices had raised concerns about distortions under the earlier system.
Also Read: India January CPI: FAQs on what has changed
The revisions will also better capture the gig and digital economy. While gig work was already included in GDP estimates, Garg said it will now be reflected more accurately using a wider range of indicators — including surveys of unincorporated enterprises, corporate filings and GST data — ensuring platform-based and self-employed workers are more fully represented.
Similarly, the informal sector will be measured with greater depth. More frequent and detailed surveys, such as those tracking employment patterns and household enterprises, along with high-frequency data like vehicle registrations and fuel consumption, are being used to plug data gaps.
Together, these changes aim to provide a more comprehensive and realistic picture of economic activity across both formal and informal segments.
What economists said: The revised series will make India’s inflation and GDP data more reflective of the current economy.
DK Srivastava, Chief Policy Advisor at EY India, said, “Investors and markets would find India’s inflation and national accounts more reflective of the real economy since both the inflation and GDP numbers would reflect current consumption and production patterns.”
He added that with services likely to have a higher weight — and typically faster growth than agriculture — the new series could show higher average real GDP growth even if the underlying economy remains the same.
Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist at ICRA , said the new GDP series, may revise the size of the economy and quarterly growth rates for FY2024–2026. “These data points would be key to reassess India’s growth-inflation mix and the direction of monetary policy action,” she said.