As the debate rages on the revised growth numbers which showed economic growth during the current NDA regime was better than that in the UPA rule, Sudipto Mundle, member of the board of governors of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, on Thursday called the political slugfests over national statistics like gross domestic product (GDP) as unfortunate.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Mundle said the statistical production system must be ring-fenced from governments to avoid such controversies and added that he is happy with the centre as it produced an official set of back numbers after three year delay.

The new numbers show India's economic growth rate averaged 6.7 percent during the Congress-led UPA regime as compared to 7.3 percent under the present government. Previous numbers had put the average growth rate during the 10-year UPA rule at 7.75 percent.

Over the involvement of the Niti Aayog in releasing revised GDP data, he said the government think tank does have a role in statistics production, "It may have been in government's interests to let Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) deal with data and maintain a distance."

On Central Statistics Office (CSO), Mundle said, “If the statistics office had a problem with panel's data, they should have written a dissent note.”

First Published:Nov 29, 2018 8:15 PM IST