INCOME ESTIMATES FOR 2016–17

The latest data (1st Advance Estimates) of India’s national income for the fiscal 2016-17 were released by the CSO (Central Statistics Office) on January 6th, 2017—major highlights are given below (Economic Survey 2016-17 and the Union Budget 2017-18 are based on the same data estimates):

(i) GDP (gross domestic product) at constant prices (2011-12) is likely to be Rs. 121.55 lakh crore with a growth rate of 7.1 per cent (down from

7.6 per cent of

2015-16). GDP at current prices is estimated to be Rs. 151.93 lakh crore showing a growth rate of 11.9 per cent.

(ii) GVA (gross value added) at basic constant prices (2011-12) is

anticipated to be

Rs. 111.53 lakh crore with a growth rate of 7.0 per cent (down from 7.2 per cent of 2015-16).

(iii) PCI (per capita income) at constant prices (2011-12) is estimated to be Rs. 81,805 with a growth rate of 5.6 per cent (down from 6.2 per cent of 2015-16). At current prices the PCI is estimated to be Rs. 1,03,007 with a growth rate of 10.4 per cent (up from 7.4 per cent of 2015-16).

1. Samuelson, P.A. and Nordhaus, W.D., Economics, Tata McGraw-Hill Pub. Company Ltd., N. Delhi, 2005, p.4.

2 . Stiglitz, J.E. and Walsh, C.E., Economics, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2006, p.6.

3 . Galbraith, J.K., A History of Economics, Penguin Books, London, 1991, pp. 188–89.

4 . The East Asian Miracle, W.B. Study, 1993.

5. World Bank, World Development Report, 1999.

6 . A highly concise and to-the-point idea on the issue comes from Joseph. E. Stiglits, ‘The Role of Government in Economic Development’, the keynote address at the Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics, 1996.

7. John Williamson, ‘What Washington Means by Policy Reform’, Chapter 2 in John Williamson (ed.), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened?, 1990; Institute for International Economics and John Williamson, ‘What Should the Bank Think About the Washington Consensus’, Background Paper to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000, Washington DC, July 1999.

8. Stiglitz, J. E., Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a paper presented at the conference From the Washington Consensus towards a new Global Governance, Barcelona, September 2004. The conference was sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Mott Foundation.

9. Williamson, J., Did the Washington Consensus Fail?, Institute for International Economics, Washington DC, 2002.

10. Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development, Pearson Education, 8th Ed., N. Delhi, p. 440.

11. Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey 2012–13, Government of India, New Delhi, 2013, p. 30

12 . Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto,

Cambridge University Press, London, 1960, pp. 1–5.

13. The discussion on National Income Accounting is based on several textbooks of economics and the documents released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) in the areas of Comparative Economics and International Economics. It was Simon Kuznets, a Nobel Prize winning economist from the USA who first conceived the idea of GDP in 1934.

14. The information on issues like ‘cost’, ‘price’, ‘taxes’ and ‘subsidies’ are based on the different Discussion Papers released by the Central Statistical Organisation (GoI) from time to time.

15. GVA, which measures the difference in value between the final good and the cost of ingredients used in its production, widens the scope of capturing more economic activity than the earlier ‘factor cost’ approach—a sum of the total cost of all factors used to produce a good or service, net of taxes and subsidies.

16. The basic price is the amount receivable by the producer from the purchaser for a unit of a good or service produced as output minus any tax payable (such as sales tax or VAT the buyer pays), and plus any subsidy receivable, on that unit as a consequence of its production or sale; it excludes any transport charges invoiced separately by the producer. In other words, the basic price is what the seller collects for the sale, as opposed to what the buyer pays.