India, March 11 -- Data nerds can spend all their time just looking at numbers and crafting stories that emerge out of the rows and columns. India's new gross domestic product (GDP) numbers were released on February 27. These numbers are based on many changes under the bonnet, making them far more significant that the regular quarterly GDP data print. The headline numbers have all been chewed over, but the underlying story of the Indian economy that this data tells has perhaps been missed. The story, in short, is this: India is growing at a stable 7%-plus a year. This growth is led by manufacturing and services on the production side. Fuelling this growth, on the expenditure side, are savings by households and government capital expenditure. India's growth is still driven by household consumption, but that is showing signs of sluggishness. Investment by private firms is lagging and needs to step up to get all the wheels turning together. Wage levels will go up as firms begin to invest more in business. That will raise household consumption and complete the circle of growth - this is the work ahead to achieve a sustained high level of growth. Quarterly GDP numbers are announced four times a year, but this round of the third quarter for financial year 2025-26 is special because the base year has changed from 2011-12 to 2022-23. This is the ninth time that India has changed its base year - doing so is basic hygiene for reporting data the world over. Countries periodically update their base year to take into account structural changes in a country's economy. For example, quick delivery was not a thing 10 years ago and now it drives so much of household spending. Base year change also updates old data sources and incorporates new data sources. This round of GDP data uses surveys such as the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Enterprises, Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey - many of them have seen changes in the manner of data collection. To supplement the data from surveys, it also now uses data from actual economic activity on the ground. For example, the GDP estimates now use GST data exhausts, the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) to capture government expenditure, and other new sources such as e-Vahan, and rail and air transport data. While some of these are old sources, changes have been made to even these data sources to make them reflect the current reality better. One of the big changes in the estimation of GDP is the use of "double deflation" in manufacturing. Double deflation was used only in agriculture and not in other sectors. Put simply, if we are trying to see the real growth of a sector, we need to remove the impact of inflation. India used to only look at the final product price and deflate that. It did not deflate the price of inputs. For example, a cell phone price might have gone up by 10%, but the chip price inside the phone might have gone up 25%. The new methodology will use as many as 600 deflators, up from 180 deflators in the earlier series, giving a truer picture of real growth. What is the impact of these changes? First, there has always been a data mismatch between the production side and expenditure side data, but with this new series, this difference will be eliminated, not just reduced - at least this is the contention of the government. Second, this will give a better reflection of the true story of Indian growth. It is a good story, of course, but there is work to be done. The most significant work ahead is restarting the private investment cycle, not just in a few sectors but across the board. Domestic consumption needs to grow; it lagged GDP growth post Covid and the recovery needs to have deeper and wider roots. The only way this will happen is when households have more disposable income. Tax breaks have been given, now it is up to the animal spirits of the private sector to run with the ball. Can we trust this data? Every TV debate disintegrates into a fight over the truth of this data. We need to distinguish between deliberate manipulation and the rules around data collection and calculation being less than optimal. To manipulate data across all the surveys will be an impossible task. To manipulate data exhausts from actual, on-ground data such as GST and e-Vahan is simply not possible. The naysayers who mulishly refuse to believe this data and prefer to rest their arguments on anecdotes need to either come up with another data set that they can defend or let go of the illiterate my-anecdote-is-better-than-your-anecdote style of debating. The issues around sub-optimal methodologies and rules around data collection have been debated and corrected through a committee process that has gone on for years. Genuine critics must spend time looking at the work under the bonnet before dismissing the entire exercise as a whitewash. What does this mean for the individual non-nerd consumer of this debate? The Indian economy is growing at a stable, but not spectacular, rate. GDP growth is important to us in our everyday lives because it translates into higher wages and higher rates of return on our investments. And the fact that in a terribly turbulent year with huge geopolitical bullying and risks, India has managed to pull off a 7.6% annual growth is commendable. We have all participated in this story as employees, entrepreneurs, tax-payers, investors and consumers - we should give ourselves a good pat on the back....