New Delhi, June 20: With the row over former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian's claims of GDP estimation by Narendra Modi government becoming a topic of debate, PM Modi's economic panel have rejected it on Wednesday, stating that his paper 'would not stand the scrutiny of academic or policy research standards'.

According to an academic paper released on Wednesday, titled 'GDP estimation in India - perspectives and facts', five economists presented a point to point rebuttal to Subramanian's conclusion. The paper was authored by EACPM chairman Bibek Debroy, Rathin Roy, Surjit Bhalla, Charan Singh and former CEA Arvind Virmani. Narendra Modi Government Overestimated GDP Growth Rate, Claims Ex-CEA Arvind Subramanian.

Claiming that the GDP overestimation by Subramanian lacks proper methodology, the economists said, as reported by TOI, "Having closely read the paper and taking into account all information available until 19th June 2019, the primary contributors of this note reject the author's methodology, arguments and conclusions in the said paper."

Adding on, they said, "The paper uses 70 countries as control and only one country (India) as treatment, something that is bad econometrics. Consequently, both the 2.5% GDP overestimation and its confidence interval are highly suspect. Also, the data frame used by the author (15 years: 10 years pre 2011, and 5 years post-2011) appears to be too small to draw statistical inferences about India's GDP trends." Narendra Modi Govt's GDP Surge Claim Dubious, 36% of Firms in Database 'Untraceable or Misclassified': NSSO Report

The economists were of the opinion blind trust on a private agency Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and blind distrust in a government institution has served unwarranted for a neutral academic. The PMEAC also claimed that Subramanian have made a hurried attempt to draw conclusions about India's complex economy and its evolution.

Earlier, former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian claimed that ruling dispensation overstated the GDP growth by about 2.5 per cent. Subramanian was of the opinion that the actual average annual growth between 2011-12 and 2016-17 may have been about 4.5 per cent, not seven per cent, as claimed by the ruling dispensations - be it Congress-led UPA or BJP-led NDA.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 20, 2019 10:09 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).