New Delhi, June 29 -- In his Statistically Speaking column published on 19 June in Mint ('India's informal sector is being tracked better than ever before'), former chief statistician of India T.C.A. Anant, while taking on those who argue India's GDP in the current series may be overestimated, has contended-among other things-that such criticism requires a more careful analysis.

His article ends on the optimistic note that better-than-ever availability of timely and regular informal-sector data presents an opportunity for India's ongoing base-revision exercise to measure value added by the informal sector in a manner that offers more clarity.

Overall, the informal (or unorganized) segment of the economy contributes 45% of the total gros...