India’s GDP math is being rewritten: What changes and why it matters

India’s GDP calculation is getting a sweeping overhaul, with the government announcing major methodological shifts aimed at capturing the economy’s true scale and structure, a move that could reshape fiscal planning and investment strategies ahead of 2026.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released a discussion paper on Friday detailing a broad revamp of India’s GDP series, set to debut with a 2022–23 base year in February 2026. Key changes include the imputation of government-provided housing, direct GVA estimation for the unincorporated sector, and a sharp pivot to granular, activity-wise corporate data.

For the first time, Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) will be included in GDP, addressing a long-standing gap in coverage. Multi-activity firms will no longer have their entire output assigned to one business segment. Instead, corporate filings will guide activity-wise output estimation — a critical fix for accurately capturing India’s evolving service and industrial base.

In a break from legacy methods, the new series will ditch outdated extrapolations from decade-old workforce data. Instead, it will use real-time productivity data from the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) and employment estimates from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) to compute GVA annually.

The financial sector will get a granular upgrade, too. Deposit-taking institutions will be tracked via RBI’s Statistical Tables, private NBFCs through MCA filings, and informal actors like moneylenders and insurance agents through ASUSE and the All India Debt & Investment Survey (AIDIS) 2019.

Government pension liabilities will now be imputed to account for the shift from the Old Pension Scheme to the National Pension System, replacing the simplistic current-period outgo approach. The coverage of autonomous and local bodies will also expand.

Other revisions include updated deflators for mining, real estate and financial services, revised repair costs for dwellings, new input-output ratios for fisheries, and more accurate fodder output rates.

MoSPI is seeking public and institutional feedback on the changes by December 10. A second paper, focused on expenditure-side revisions, is expected soon.