How we work, in the open.
Every number on this site can be traced back to a press release. This page explains the rules we hold ourselves to: so you can hold us to them too.
The standing rules
Every observation is traceable.
Each chart names its publisher, the exact release, and the release date. If you cannot find our source, that is our error: write to us at bhuvan@bebhuvan.com and we will fix it or take the chart down.
Derived series are labelled as derived.
Some useful series are not published by anyone: core inflation is the classic example. Where we compute a series ourselves, it is drawn dashed and disclosed in the guide's sources and method, every time it appears.
Conflicts are shown, not reconciled.
When two official statistics appear to contradict, CPI against WPI, old base against new, we plot both as separate series and explain the difference. We never average away a disagreement.
Plotted points are the real points.
Our charts connect actual observations with straight lines. We do not smooth or seasonally adjust unless the source does, and we say when it does. Where the source never published a value, the CPI housing group for ten months of 2018-19, we interpolate the index level, flag the affected months in the series metadata, and disclose it in the guide's provenance. A peak on our chart is a number that was actually published.
Vintages are explicit.
Statistics that get revised, GDP above all, are quoted with their estimate vintage. When a series is restated, we show both vintages rather than silently rewriting history. Every vintage we build is committed to git, so the diff of any revision is reviewable.
We say "we do not know".
Where something is not measured, an official core inflation rate, the informal sector's true output, the page says so, instead of inventing a figure.
Sources we rely on
Our primary sources are India's official statistical agencies. MoSPI and the NSO supply prices, the national accounts, industrial production and the big sample surveys (PLFS for jobs, HCES for household spending, the ASI and ASUSE for enterprises), served through the eSankhyiki API. The RBI supplies banking, credit, deposits, interest rates, payments, public finance and the external account, from its Database on Indian Economy. The Office of the Economic Adviser supplies wholesale prices; ministries supply the rest: agriculture for crops, education for colleges (AISHE), health for the family health survey, commerce for trade, new and renewable energy for power capacity. For comparisons with the world we use the World Bank, the UN, the ILO and the BIS. Each guide names the release and the date its latest figure came from.
A scheduled pipeline fetches each source, keeps the raw download as an audit trail, checks it (dates in order, values in plausible ranges, parts that add up to their totals, our computed figures against published ones) and commits the result. The site is built from those committed files, and every number is baked into the page: your browser never fetches anything. The exact vintage is printed in every footer.
Some figures are computed by us from published ones rather than read off a headline table, and each is labelled where it appears. GDP growth, for example, is computed from constant-price levels and checked against the published growth table, which is rounded. Core inflation, shares, ratios and per-person figures are computed the same way, and drawn dashed when they are series of our own.
Corrections
Errors are corrected on the page, noted in the guide's version line, and, if they changed a conclusion, flagged at the top of the affected section for one full revision cycle.