The Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) in New Delhi has just announced its first official estimate of GDP growth this fiscal, 2007-08. The figure is 8.7%. This is its ?advance estimate?, though it looks suspiciously close to a golden mean of the 8.5% estimated by the Reserve Bank of India, which is typically conservative with such numbers, and the 8.9% publicised by a report of the Prime Minister?s economic council, which tends to be more optimistic. Anyhow, 8.7% it is in 2007-08, and it represents a dip of almost a percentage point from the heady 9.6% recorded in 2006-07, as recently put out by the ?quick estimate? for that year?which the CSO will replace by a ?revised estimate? and then a final figure many months from now. In all, arriving at how fast the economy grew in a single year is a process that takes four years. So, how secure is the just-released 8.7% figure for 2007-08? As something to go by, it serves a purpose. But the financial year in question will end only on March 31, 2008, and it would be silly to expect any semblance of accuracy at this early stage. By end-June, the CSO will release an ?update? of this advance 2007-08 estimate, and come up with a quick estimate by January-end 2009, and a revised estimate by January-end 2010. The ?provisional? and ?final? figures, also called ?revised estimate 2? and ?revised estimate 3?, will follow, once all the relevant data is in and crunched to the very last bit.

If that sounds bewildering, it is. But consider the good news: while estimate volatility may have risen over the past few years of booming growth, all said and done, variations in the successive figures are generally negligible once the quick estimate is made. The advance estimate for 2006-07 was 9.2%, which was updated to 9.4%, and has now been put at 9.6%, the quick estimate. This is unlikely to see any further change beyond the smaller decimals, and can thus be used for the record books. As for the 8.7% figure for 2007-08, it will be another year before you can be confident of it. But still, unless there are drastic revisions, it does confirm that the Indian economy is no longer accelerating. This was not unanticipated, given the industrial and construction slowdown, but the decline in agricultural growth from 3.8% to 2.6% comes as an unpleasant surprise.