We can't understand.

"Surpassing the expectations of analysts, India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered a robust growth of 8.4% on an annual basis in the third quarter (October-December), as against 8.1% in the previous quarter, data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed. The number for Q1, Q2 FY24 has also been revised upwards to 8.2% (against 7.8%) and 8.1% (against 7.6%) respectively." ET. "India collected Rs 1.68 lakh crore (Rs 1.68 trillion) as goods and services tax (GST) in February, up 12.5% from a year earlier, reflecting continued momentum in economic activity." "The total gross GST collection for the current fiscal year stood at Rs 18.40 lakh crore, which is 11.7% higher than the collection for the same period in FY2022-23." ET. Since GST is collected on the price of goods and services, the higher the price, the higher will be the collection. "The measure of economywide inflation is GDP deflator." "The nominal growth rate of GDP in current fiscal has been forecast at 9.1%, and the real growth rate rate at 7.6%. That means that GDP deflator has collapsed to 1.5%. "If economywide inflation had been marked at a higher level, that would have depressed real growth," wrote TK Arun. The consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate was 4.9% in October, 5.6% in November and 5.7% in December 2023. RI. These are the rise in prices over the same months in 2022. It is difficult for us to comprehend how the deflator is only 1.5%. "However, the consensus among economists is that this was primarily on the back of strong net tax collections and controlling of expenditure on subsidies by the government, something which could dissipate in the coming quarter. The view is that gross value added (GVA) which grew at 6.5% in the quarter, is a much better indicator of the economy's actual growth." DH. "The wide divergence between the GVA and GDP in the October-December quarter was mainly due to a sharp fall in subsidies in that quarter largely because of lower payouts on fertilizer subsidies like Urea," a senior government official said. "Government data showed fertilizer subsidies in the October-December quarter declined by nearly 70% to 307 billion rupees ($3.7 billion) from the same period a year ago." BT. "Investment remains the primary driver of growth, increasing by 10.6% year-on-year in the third quarter." "In contrast, consumption saw a modest increase of only 3.5%, falling below the overall growth rate, states the report." ABP. "The simple fact is: India badly, and perhaps desperately, needs a complete overhaul of the architecture of data collection, statistical sampling and subsequent interpretation," wrote Yashwant Deshmukh and Sutanu Guru. That is the real problem. The figures are confused. How can we possibly understand?