New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS): Announcing it as the Narendra Modi-led government's most significant achievement till date, President Pranab Mukherjee Monday said the latest estimates of India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth makes it the fastest growing large economy in the world.
"As a result of my government's sustained efforts and series of policy initiatives, our economy is again on the high growth trajectory," Mukherjee told the joint sitting of parliament on the opening day of the budget session.
"According to the latest estimates, our GDP is growing at 7.4 percent, which makes India the fastest growing large economy in the world," he added.
Earlier this month government statisticians came out with GDP data calculated with a new base year, which makes it harder for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to assess the size of the fiscal stimulus required to help boost the economy.
The government said it expects the annual gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at 7.4 percent in the current fiscal under a new method for computing national accounts, thereby resulting in the upward economic growth rate.
Shifting the base year from 2004-05 to 2011-12, the Central Statistical Office last week estimated GDP growth during 2014-15 at 7.4 percent as compared to 6.9 percent in 2013-14. It has also revised the growth rate for the first half of 2014-15 to 7.4 percent from the 5.5 percent it had earlier reported under the old method.
"Real GDP at constant (2011-12) prices in the year 2014-15 is likely to attain a level of Rs.106.57 lakh crore, as against the first revised estimate of GDP for the year 2013-14 of Rs.99.21 lakh crore, released on Jan 30, 2015," the CSO said in its advance estimates of national income 2014-15.
While the growth rate calculated under the new system for the second quarter has been revised to 8.2 percent, that for the first quarter has been pegged at 6.5 percent.
Commenting on data procedures, Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said last month: "We may be reaching the outskirts of the woods but we are not out of the woods yet. So I don't think any data that suggests we are out of the woods at this point, we would put too much weight on it."
Under the new method, CSO measures GDP by market prices instead of factor costs, to take into account gross value addition (GVA) in goods and services and indirect taxes.