There has been a demand to use goods and services tax (GST) data for national accounts. However, even after three years of the roll out of the indirect tax system, the issue remains hanging.

Why is this so? Former chief statistician Pronab Sen says it is not difficult to use GST data for national accounts. The issue is the GST authorities are not sharing the data with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), he explained. He said the point is that GST is a value-added tax. "From the past data, you should know what rate is applicable to any given unit. ...