Government of India adopting new methods to estimate national GDP. Here’s a report…

New Delhi: The National Statistical Office (NSO) is updating its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculation methodology by incorporating new digital data sources such as vehicle registrations and online payments.

It is also considering using data from Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms and administrative records for fuel and LPG prices to update the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for measuring retail inflation.

The NSO is exploring data from the GST portal, e-Vahan vehicle registration portal, and UPI transaction data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for GDP calculation, in addition to traditional sources such as the Office of the Comptroller General of Accounts (CGA), MCA-21, and the RBI.

The updated GDP series with a base year of 2022-23 will be released on February 27, 2026.

The base year for the new CPI series is changing to 2024, with data from online platforms for air and rail fares, OTT platforms, and administrative records for petrol, diesel, and LPG prices being considered.

The Ministry may use scanner data, web scraping methods, and data from e-commerce websites for price information.

The new CPI series, based on the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2023-24, will have an increased number of items and is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2026.

The current CPI basket has 299 items, with services accounting for 23.36 percent and goods for 76.6 percent of the total weight.

Food and beverages have the highest weight at over 50 percent.

A Working Group under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is revising the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) base year from 2011-12 to 2022-23 and is also reviewing the commodity basket for the new series.

The NSO will also launch two new surveys: the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) to understand travel patterns and transportation choices, and the Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES) to collect data on tourism spending, trip purpose, transportation modes, and accommodation used.