NSO’s GDP Forecast- Highlights

The National Statistical Office (NSO) recently released its data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the financial year 2021.

Key Facts

• As per the NSO, the Indian economy will be expanded by 0.4% in the December quarter. Thus, with this, the economy will be emerged from the recession which was induced by the covid-19 pandemic.
• The report also highlights that, the recovery of the economy is expected to strengthen because the vaccination programme in India is progressing smoothly. Because of this, public has gained the confident to shop, dine out and travel.
• It further highlights that, the expansion in gross domestic product (GDP) was weaker than 0.6% as estimated by economists in the Bloomberg survey.
• It also highlights that the economy has managed to turn around after two successive quarters of record contraction.
• As per the data, the GDP contractions have been revised to 24.4% and 7.3% for the quarters of June and September as opposed to the earlier estimates of 23.9% and 7.5% for same quarter.
• NSO proposes for a deeper 8% contraction.

How did economy revive?

The economic growth was revived with the help of resumption of the economic activity after the government lifted the lockdown restrictions and boosted the spending. Further, the vaccination programme in India has further boosted the confidence that the economy will grow stronger in the fiscal year 2021-22. However, the economy will face the challenge of containing a surge in new infections.

National Statistical Office (NSO)

NSO as an agency that was formed on the recommendation of the Rangarajan Commission. The office was set up to implement and maintain the statistical standards and coordinate the statistical activities of Central and State agencies in accordance with the National Statistical Commission (NSC). The Rangarajan Commission had also recommended to set up the NSC. NSC is headed by a person having a “Minister of State-Level designation”. NSC will serve as a nodal body for all core statistical activities in India. NSO was formed after merging the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) and Central Statistics Office (CSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2021