India GDP figures face questions after 7.8% growth

India's 7.8 percent year-on-year GDP growth figure for the April-June quarter has come under scrutiny after a former senior finance ministry official said changes to past data may have boosted the headline rate.

Subhash Chandra Garg, a former finance secretary, has argued that growth was unfairly inflated because it was calculated against revised numbers that lowered the base for the same quarter a year earlier.

According to Garg, nominal GDP for the April-June quarter of 2025 was cut from about 86 trillion rupees, or $910 billion, to 80 trillion rupees under the revised calculations. He said the lower base raised this year's growth rate and created distortions in sector-level performance.

New Delhi has rejected the idea that the revisions were designed to make current growth look stronger. Indian officials say the changes were part of a broad statistical overhaul announced in February, when India updated its GDP series and shifted the base year to 2022-23 from 2011-12.

The government says the amendments added new data sources and more detailed methods for adjusting for inflation, and were needed to better reflect the structure of the economy.

The debate has become political because Garg has been a frequent critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government since leaving office in 2019, and the opposition Congress party has accused the government of “fudging” the numbers to hide what it called the country's real economic distress.

The row has also revived wider concerns about transparency, accountability and whether rapid growth is producing enough quality jobs for India's expanding workforce.

Many economists say there is evidence that economic activity strengthened during the quarter, including car sales, tax collections and bank lending, along with a rebound in consumption after income tax cuts introduced last year.

Teresa John of Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities told AFP that high-frequency indicators had been robust, adding that underlying momentum had been “fairly strong” even if the exact growth figure was debated.