The National Statistical Office (NSO) has released the 2022-23 GDP fourth-quarter growth rate figures. Measured against fourth-quarter figures of the previous year, the data give a gloomier picture than what the media publications of the Press Information Bureau present. According to NSO data, in the first COVID-19 pandemic quarter of 2020-21, i.e., April 1 to June 30, 2020, GDP growth rate was minus 23.8% when compared to GDP of the same period in 2019-20.
Three conclusions based on NSO data since 2014-2015 are important for a reality check. First, the growth rate of GDP, since 2015-16 had been declining annually, and has fallen in the fourth quarter to what it was earlier, and sneeringly referred to by economists as “The Hindu Rate of Growth” — 3.5% growth rate in GDP.
Second, it is essential to recognise that since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s widely publicised “Vikas” in reality achieved the so-called “Hindu rate of growth” in GDP of what had been achieved in the period 1950-77 — the socialism period.
