The current IIP figures do not measure up to that standard. The structure of Indian industry has changed drastically since 1980-81. Whole industries, such as software have grown up since then, and although the contribution of various industries to the gross domestic product has changed dramatically, this was not reflected by in a change in the weightages for calculating IIP.

These defects have been remedied by changing the base year, while an effort has also been made to make the index more representative by including more items as well as part of the unorganised sector. The revision has shown a rate of growth higher than under the original series. This is because the earlierseries was based on a picture of Indian industry as it prevailed in 1980-81, and many of the industries prominent at that time are now sunset industries.

On the other hand, the new series include many fast growing industries which have recently come up, and this should make for a faster rate of growth. It is also possible that sections of small-scale sector are more dynamic than the organised sector, which is also a reason for higher growth rates. Such revisions are called for more frequently, in tune with the rapid changes in the Indian industry due to liberalisation. But, now that the number of items has been increased, CSO's data-collection mechanism, already suspect, will come under further strain. So, streamlining data collection should be a priority. Also necessary is more transparency from CSO, on their sample sizes, methods of extrapolation etc.