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Why the IMF Gave India’s National Accounts Data a ‘C’ Grade

The IMF rated India’s national accounts data C in its 2025 surveillance assessment, citing concerns about methods and coverage. The grade was not a judgment on GDP growth or data fabrication.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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The International Monetary Fund gave India’s national accounts statistics a C in its 2025 assessment of data adequacy for surveillance. The rating reflects methodological and coverage concerns that the IMF said somewhat hamper its economic monitoring—not a grade for India’s GDP growth, and not a judgment that the figures are fabricated. The other statistical sectors listed in the assessment received B ratings, making the table’s median B.

What the IMF’s C grade means

The rating appears in the IMF’s November 2025 Article IV staff report, Country Report No. 25/314. Its Data Adequacy Assessment for Surveillance (DAA) evaluates whether the data supplied to the Fund are suitable for monitoring the economy. The IMF explains that a C means data have shortcomings that “somewhat hamper surveillance.” It is a rating of the data’s usefulness for that purpose, not a score for economic performance. Read the IMF’s 2025 India Article IV report.

The C applied specifically to national accounts—the statistical framework used to measure output, income and expenditure, including GDP. The same table rated prices, government finance statistics, external sector statistics, monetary and financial statistics, and inter-sectoral consistency B. The median across those listed sectors was B.

Why national accounts received C

IMF staff said national accounts data were available with adequate frequency and timeliness and had broadly adequate granularity. The C reflected methodological weaknesses, including concerns across price measurement, estimates and coverage:

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  • Outdated base year: The assessment cited 2011/12 as the base year in use at the time.
  • Deflators and price measures: Wholesale price indices were used as sources for deflators because producer price indices were lacking.
  • Risk of cyclical bias: The report said extensive use of single deflation could introduce cyclical biases. Deflation is the process of removing price changes to estimate real, inflation-adjusted output.
  • Discrepancies between estimates: Sizable differences sometimes appeared between production- and expenditure-based estimates. The IMF said this pointed to a need to improve expenditure-side coverage and coverage of the informal sector.
  • Quarterly data methods: Quarterly national accounts lacked seasonally adjusted data, and the report said other compilation techniques could be improved.

Taken together, the concerns address how completely economic activity is captured and how reliably nominal values are converted into real output. The report says these weaknesses somewhat hamper surveillance; it does not say the published GDP figures are fraudulent or invalid.

How the 2025 rating fits with earlier and later data

The IMF’s 2024 Article IV report had also rated India’s national accounts C and raised concerns about the base year, deflators, differences between production and expenditure estimates, informal-sector coverage and seasonal adjustment. The 2025 report therefore retained an existing rating rather than assigning C for the first time. See the IMF’s 2024 India Article IV report.

India’s Executive Director at the IMF, Urjit Patel, said in a November 21, 2025 statement that the DAA ratings would be reassessed once updated national accounts series were published in February 2026. The IMF’s April 2026 World Economic Outlook statistical appendix uses a 2022/23 base year for India’s real GDP growth rates. That confirms a revised base year was reflected in IMF data presentation, but does not establish that the IMF issued a new DAA rating after the revision. Read Patel’s statement and the April 2026 WEO statistical appendix.

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What readers should—and should not—take from the grade

The C signals limitations in one important set of statistics used for economic analysis. It is not a verdict on India’s growth rate, a claim that every Indian statistic is weak, or evidence that GDP has been falsified. The IMF’s assessment also recognized adequate frequency and timeliness and broadly adequate granularity; its concerns focused on methods and aspects of coverage in national accounts.

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