CSO a professional body, even IMF accepts its data: Jaitley

Rejecting criticism of GDP numbers, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the CSO is a professional organisation and its data is accepted by leading international oraganisations like the IMF. "We have a convention in India and a practice, which the CSO has followed throughout. I don't think the professionalism of the CSO has even been called into question. "They are a very responsible and professional organisation. They revise their methodologies and at the end of the day various international institutions most importantly the IMF accepts their data," he said. Jaitley was responding to a question on a report in an international publication in which it was suggested that India's growth was 4.3 per cent if calculated on old methodology. The Central Statistical Office (CSO), which tabulates the data on national income, has estimated the growth rate for 2015-16 at 7.6 per cent based on the new methodology. The GDP growth was 7.1 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal. "Please don't forget once you revise it with effect to a particular cut-off date, and thereafter you use the same formulation and increases would be measured in the same formulations itself. "And I think if you actually see the extent of activities going on in India, probably this kind of analysis, of course economists are free to make an analysis, would not be a very fair comment," the finance minister said.