India’s revised GDP series will capture the gig economy more comprehensively using company annual reports, household income data, and GST records, says Saurabh Garg, secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Mospi).
The new framework employs multiple data sources: Annual surveys tracking workers in unincorporated enterprises (ASUSE), GST data from smaller firms, and corporate revenue reports from gig economy platforms, he explains.
Improved gig economy measurement forms part of India’s broader macroeconomic modernisation, which includes updating the GDP base year to 2022–23 and the consumer price index (CPI) base year to 2024—the first major revision in over a decade. Ahead of the new CPI series release on February 12 and the GDP series on February 27, Garg sat down with Forbes India in an exclusive interview to discuss how the new framework will better capture post-pandemic consumption shifts, the burgeoning gig economy, and digital commerce while addressing IMF concerns about outdated methodologies. Edited excerpts:
Q. Will the base year be revised more frequently in the future?
Normally, one is expected to revise them every 5-7 years. We would have had this revision earlier, but there were some important economic changes that happened. First, GST got introduced, and then Covid intervened. The first normal year after Covid was 2021-22. After that, we did two household consumption expenditure surveys in 2022-23 and 2023-24. So, it was felt that 2022-23 was a pretty normal economic year, and that’s the reason we selected this base. In future, we hope to do it every five years.
India has long been criticised for using single deflation. How does the new series address this criticism to more accurately reflect value added in the economy?
We were always using double deflation in agriculture. This was an issue in manufacturing. We are going to totally do away with that and use double deflation, so that we capture the value added in the manufacturing process, bereft of any changes due to the price rise. In services also, we would be using either double deflation or the volume extrapolation method, which, in effect, has the same impact. So, we would be doing away totally with single deflation in the new series.
Q. Will gig economy be captured in the new economic output data?
The GDP reflects the entire economy, and the gig economy is captured as part of it. It gets captured in a variety of ways. For example, we now do an annual survey of unincorporated sector enterprises and a survey that captures individuals working in the household sector. We also get the results from the corporate side. A combination of this ensures that we do not leave out any part of the economy. Even without the revision of the base year, in the old system, the gig economy was getting captured. The only thing is, it will get captured more accurately given that we are using more indicators now.
Q. And what are some of these indicators for the gig economy?
In the household sector, we ask what is the kind of income that they have, or what is the kind of work that they are doing. So, that captures people who are working on their own and are a part of the gig economy. We will also use data from the annual reports and revenues from companies and platforms that employ these workers. We use GST data, which captures those firms which may be smaller firms, and get an idea of the sector wise activities that the gig workers are involved in.
Q. India’s informal economy has been very difficult to measure and estimate. How will the new series be used to move away from the old method of extrapolation (for the informal economy)? And will there be measures to capture the informal economy more comprehensively?
In the recent past, we have increased the types of surveys we are doing to get better information. One of them is the annual survey of unincorporated sector enterprises, which includes both manufacturing and services. The second thing that we have now is a periodic labour force survey, which is available monthly. Apart from that, we have high frequency data from e-VAHAN, fuel consumption and GST data. We have increased the number of indicators which will give a sense of the informal economy, apart from doing regular surveys. We have a Time Use Survey, which gives us types of activities that people are involved in. Similarly, on education and the health side, we do modular surveys on the money spent on private tuition. We look at different sectors of the economy, identify data gaps, and do focussed surveys to get data. The combination of this will ensure that we have a much better sense of the informal sector.
Q. With the US-India trade deal slashing tariffs to 18 percent, the Chief Economic Advisor has recently said that India’s economy could grow even faster than the government’s earlier forecast. Do we have any estimate on what effect will the recent trade deals with USA and EU have on India’s growth calculations?
We don’t do a direct analysis related to any particular action that has been taken, but we do monitor the economy as a whole. A lot of the indirect or direct impact of these interventions will be seen on the indicators that we use to measure the economy.
Q. The IMF’s Article IV report recently retained a ‘C’ rating for India’s national accounts for the second straight year, citing methodological gaps and an outdated base year. Given your recent consultations with the IMF and World Bank, do you expect the February 27 new GDP series to move India to a ‘B’ or ‘A’ rating?
I think one of the major reasons why they had kept the rating at what they had was because the base year was more than five years old. We have revised the base year to 2022-23. As I mentioned earlier, we have also done several other methodological and data changes and increased the number of data sources.
Q. How will the basket of items change to capture the new realities of Indian economic activity and the surging digitalisation?
One of the ways that we get the consumption basket is by doing a consumption expenditure survey, which we did in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Based on this, we have more than 350 items now (from 299 items earlier) and also increased the number of services in the consumption basket. In the old basket, we had things like CDs, DVDs and VCRs. Now we have mobiles, OTT. Transport and conveyance have increased because people are travelling much more. The amount spent on prepared food and restaurants has increased. So, the current consumption basket is more reflective of the present consumption patterns.
Q. The CPI weight for Food & Beverages has dropped from 46 percent to 36.8 percent. Will this shift affect the RBI’s ability to target inflation, given that food volatility used to dictate headline numbers?
We only had six groups in the earlier system, now we have 12. And there is a separate category for restaurant and accommodation services. So, a lot of the prepared food items have shifted to a different category.
Coming to your second point, the monetary policy requires more accurate and representative data. And I think the new CPI is more representative of the current consumption patterns of people and it will only help RBI in monetary policy.
Q. How are we ensuring that the pricing for digital services like quick commerce is being captured accurately across both urban and rural centres?
We’ve looked at the consumption patterns, and obviously quick commerce has greater penetration in the urban areas. We have looked at 12 markets in the urban sectors. Apart from this, we are using online data or administrative data—we have a much more representative set of airfares, costs of OTT services and online media services. We are looking at fuel costs across petrol pumps because they are fixed administratively. But at the same time, the brick-and-mortar price collection continues. That is still the backbone because a lot of rural and urban areas still purchase from shops.
Q. Housing weight has jumped significantly to 17.7 percent. We are also looking at the inclusion of rural house rents for the first time. Could we see structurally higher inflation readings even when food prices are stable?
Let me clarify that we are capturing housing rents and not purchase of houses—we are not capturing capital but revenue expenditure. In the new housing group series, we now include water, electricity, gas and fuel, which in the earlier series reflected separately. So, in terms of classification, it is going to be around 17.7 percent in 2024 from around 16.9 percent in 2012—which is not a significant increase. Just the grouping has changed.
First Published: Feb 11, 2026, 16:17
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