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Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves to talk up all his “pioneering firsts”. Well, he’s now added a truly lethal one to that arsenal – India’s first post-truth Budget!
Exactly 18 hours before the Budget was presented in Parliament, India dramatically upped its previous two years’ GDP numbers. Ironically, the most brazen “upgrade” was reserved for 2016-17 when demonetisation had clearly ravaged the economy.
But apparently, people used their cancelled Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to go on such a 4-hour spending splurge (remember, citizens only had 4 hours before their old currency notes became less valuable than toilet paper) that growth in private final consumption expenditure was recalibrated from 7.3 percent to 8.2 percent. And trade, hotels, transport and communication sectors took wings, growing 40 basis points higher than estimated earlier.
But the fudging… err “re-stating”… did not stop there.
The very next year, agricultural growth was yanked up from 3.4 percent to 5 percent (an eye-popping 50 percent; now I wonder why India’s field statisticians missed the telltale signs of such joyful rural prosperity when they were in the countryside?).
Magically, just hours before the Budget was read out, India had added over Rs 3.5 lakh cr to its nominal GDP this year. Now why is that important?
Since this is the denominator for all key metrics, including the critical fiscal deficit percentage, a bloated figure in the denominator would allow you to hide your budgetary failures. You could safely overshoot your deficit, but tell the world “hey, since my GDP is actually larger than what I had estimated earlier, I am in the safe zone”. Simply put, a fudge in the denominator allows you to fudge the numerator as well. So cool.
The game was actually given away when finance ministry officials were put on the mat for reneging on the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent for the current year.
Most nonchalantly, they said: “We have new GDP numbers. According to that, GDP for 2019-20 is Rs 225 lakh cr, as against Rs 220 lakh cr which we have assumed in our papers. If you work with these numbers, then our fiscal deficit is 3.1 percent for next year.”
Simple. Since the GDP is not a cold, objective data point, but an estimate, all you need to do is tweak a few things and change it. So cool. Just like that.
I wonder whether Prime Minister Modi has heard of President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina (and the earlier Peronist regime headed by her late husband, Nestor Kirchner). They gained notoriety for cooking up Argentina’s inflation statistics.
Here is a quote from an article in Forbes (30 January 2015): In 2006 the annual inflation rate reached almost 10 percent. This time Nestor Kirchner’s administration perfected the fraud. In January 2007, in an effort to conceal the actual inflation rate, President Kirchner fired the experts responsible for measuring and publishing the consumer price index at the National Statistics and Census Institute … after they refused to modify inflation figures, and replaced them with political appointees.
Does this story from Argentina ring a bell? How two independent professionals at India’s National Statistics Commission (NSC) have just quit because they refused to change the unemployment statistics? And how their jobs have been taken over by political appointees at Niti Aayog? Spooky, right? Now now, do not begin humming that heart-breaking song, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina…
Honestly Modiji, do we want India to go the Argentina way? How can your nationalistic fervour even allow this to come into the realm of speculation?
Besides suspect GDP data, India’s budget is an archaic statement based on a “cash accounting” policy. This allows our bureaucrats to merrily fudge the numbers, pushing some “off the balance sheet”, while simply ignoring others which can be easily hidden. Just consider these examples:
It’s now imperative for the government to move towards accrual and consolidated accounting. That would be a fundamental reform. But until that happens, it’s critical to publish the following schedules transparently in the budget:
If the above reforms don’t happen, and we continue to “manufacture” economic numbers, we shall be condemned to post-truth Budgets.
Of course, the innately wise Indian voter could also intervene in May 2019.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 02 Feb 2019,06:31 PM IST