Former Finance and Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg is grabbing the spotlight for his critical remaks on latest Global Domestic Product (GDP) numbers.
India’s economy grew 7.8 per cent in real terms in the first quarter of fiscal 2026-27, according to the revised GDP series. But Garg said that the country’s 7.8 per cent growth needs a closer scrutiny because the base used to calculate the growth has changed.
Let’s take a closer look at who is Subhash Chandra Garg.
Who is Subhash Chandra Garg?
Born in Jaipur in 1960, Subhash Chandra Garg is a 1983-batch retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the Rajasthan cadre. Garg served as Finance Secretary in 2019 after serving as Secretary of the (DEA).
In July 2019, Garg took voluntary retirement from service, a day after he was moved to the Power Ministry in a broader reshuffle just three weeks after the presentation of the Union Budget. Garg’s scheduled retirement was in October 2020.
‘The Ten Trillion Dream Dented’
Since his retirement, Garg has written and spoken extensively on India’s economy, fiscal policy and public finance. He is best known for his book The State of the Indian Economy and Reforms in Modi 2.0 (2019-2024), in which he discusses India’s economic growth ambitions and policy challenges.
This book based on Garg’s data-driven analysis of India’s economic path presents a comprehensive and critical analysis of the performance of the Indian economy under the from 2019 to 2024. It critically examines the policy measures taken by the government and identifies the reasons why India can’t become a $10 trillion economy by 2035.
Roles in World Bank, IBRD
Garg was Executive Director in the World Bank Group for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka from November, 2014 to July, 2017. He also served on the Board of Directors for the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), collectively referred as the World Bank, the (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
Garg has over three decads of experience in administration, management and public policy, in finance and several development sectors – agriculture, education, energy and rural development.
Garg has managed government finances both at the Centre and in the State of Rajasthan. In Government of India, he worked as Director in the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) and Joint Secretary in the Department of Expenditure (DoE), in the and in the Rajasthan in various capacities as Secretary (Expenditure), Secretary (Budget) and Principal Secretary of Finance. He has also been Joint Secretary (Agriculture) and Additional Secretary (Cabinet).
What did Garg say now?
Garg, in an interview with NDTV, suggested that GDP growth would have been juts about 2.6 per cent in current prices if last year’s GDP had not been revised down from roughly ₹86 lakh crore to ₹80 lakh crore.
He also said that truth cannot be hidden, and the system that records what happens every month and every quarter has been in place for years.
In series of interviews Garg pointed out that real GDP data for the first quarter of the previous year was released under the old series rather than the new one. He said the figure being used as the base for Q1 of 2025-26, however, comes from the new series.
“I think this is a serious question which we should really examine. The growth 7.8 per cent in this quarter on the face of it looks very good,” Garg said.
Basically, Garg tried to highlight that (MoSPI), which released the fresh data, retrospectively lowered Q1 FY2025-26 nominal GDP from about ₹86.05 trillion to ₹80.00 trillion, a reduction of roughly ₹6.05 trillion, with much of the production-side revision concentrated in services.
Congress uses Garg’s clip
The Congress party accused the Union Government of using PR to ‘polish the picture.’ The Congress cited former finance secretary ‘s remarks on GDP numbers to attack the Modi government, saying it must understand that “PR can polish the picture” of GDP but not the economy itself.
Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, shared a video clip from an interview in which Garg ‘burst the bubble’ on the government’s claim. Garg’s assessment is that the real GDP growth is around 2.6%, not 7.8%, Ramesh said in the post.
Ramesh said the government’s claims of robust economic growth, amplified through what he described as statistical “jugglery”, were at odds with conditions on the ground.
“Former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg has now burst the bubble on this claim. His assessment is that the real GDP growth is around 2.6%, not 7.8%,” Ramesh said in a post on X, adding, “The Modi government must understand: PR can polish the picture of GDP, but not the economy itself.”
Piyush Goyal takes a jibe
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday criticised opposition parties and Subhash Garg over his remarks, saying he did not know how to ‘compare apples with apples’ and was trying to misguide the people of India.
Goyal said that in this global world of turmoil, India is an oasis in the desert and the country continued to be the fastest-growing amongst large economies of the world.
“The naysayers can say what they want, but 7.8 per cent growth is a reality. When I see on television some of the opposition leaders, even possibly you can throw in along with them a (Garg) or a former Reserve Bank governor, both of whom could not complete their time in India or in the government and for the right reasons.
“They don’t even know how to compare apples with apples. They are trying to misguide the people of India, comparing a growth rate at an old series with a new series, where the base year itself has changed,” Goyal told reporters here.
What did MoSPI say in response?
MoSPI called Garg’s statement ‘unfortinate.’
“Whenever we compare year-to-year, we always compare on constant prices because current prices include price inflation, and therefore current price is not the correct method to compare . Whenever we do a comparison, we need to compare like to like; we can’t compare apples to oranges,” MoSPI Secretary Saurabh Garg told news agency ANI.
So what has been done is that the current GDP of the old series, which has already become obsolete, and the data we had released last year, has been compared with the current GDP of this quarter of the new series, he said.
“If you look at the volume output, for example, the number of automobiles produced, the amount of cement produced, the amount of steel produced, and you compare this from quarter one of last year and quarter one of this year, this shows extremely high growth rates of 12 per cent, 14 per cent, 16 per cent when we look at volume growth. Making this statement that there has been some data fudging done is extremely unfortunate,” Saurabh Garg told ANI.
(With agency inputs)