It is not a little embarrassing that serious economists in the world, with no vested interest in toeing New Delhi’s line, are looking at an Indian adaptation of the Li Keqiang index to arrive at a fair understanding of where the economy stands; its lead economic indicators having been reimagined to no good end. Without getting into a justification or otherwise for the motivations behind such obfuscation, it is interesting to recall that back in 2015-16, irked by the increasingly dubious quality of official data, London’s Nevsky Capital had shut down its $1.5-billion hedge fund, accusing both India and China of data fudge and insisting that such “distortion” made it difficult to forecast the “macro and, hence, micro as well” reality for its investment universe.

Indeed, some forecasts by independent analysts were prescient. Brokerage firms such as Ambit Capital’s Keqiang (pronounced ‘kuh cheeang’) index for India, prepared around September 2015, was based on “real” indicators such as auto sales, cargo volume, capital goods imports and power demand. Rail cargo, port traffic and some such were impacted by higher freight traffic on roads courtesy low oil prices or reduced port traffic owed itself to slow global demand. Insightful forecasts pointed towards an inexorable downturn and Ambit’s pace of growth estimation for the real economy around the September 2015 quarter was no more than six per cent year-on-year, while the new GDP series said it was 7.4.

The number had been falling consistently. That India continues to be in a state of denial is worrisome; the Chief Economic Adviser, Krishnamurthy Subramanian’s effort to put a positive spin on everything is unconvincing and even more bemusing are efforts to blame the media for blowing the slowdown story out of proportions. If anything, the media should have harped on the grim prognostications from four years ago, as should have private enterprise that is now up in arms.

One does not need the wisdom of Raghuram Rajan to perceive the “variety of growth projections from the private sector analysts”. Many, being significantly below government projections, worry him as he seeks pressing reforms to boost the economy and energize the private sector to invest as well. A fresh look at how the gross domestic product is calculated becomes an imperative because GDP indices should steer the economy towards resolving deeprooted issues, not ignoring them or suggesting instant aids that the troubled industry sector is demanding.

India needs an overhaul of the financial structure, specifically the non-bank financial sector and realize that while shortage of finance is a problem, throwing money at the industrial slowdown will deliver neither genuine reforms nor revival, notwithstanding what the claims of the 131 chartered accountants, faithfully endorsing government statistics and calling the economists’ intervention “baseless allegations with political motivations” say. Eventually, when the economy and industry falter, not even accountants will have businesses paying their not insubstantial bills.