National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6 | India’s GDP Base Year Revision

National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6

Science & technology

Context

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6 for the period 2023-24. 

About

• Nodal Agency – International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai 
• Objective – to evaluate India’s progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Scope: 6.79 lakh households across 715 districts. Manipur was excluded.
• Funding: 100% domestic funding by the Government of India (no external aid).
• Key Exclusions: Omitted previous indicators like anaemia, disability, and cancer screenings.

Major Data Trends: NFHS-5 vs NFHS-6

• Total Fertility Rate (TFR): Remained stable at 2.0 (below the 2.1 replacement level).
• Institutional Deliveries: Rose from 88.6% to 90.6%.
• Full Immunisation: Increased from 83.8% to 87.1%.
• Child Stunting (<5 years): Dropped significantly from 35.5% to 29.3%.Health 
• Insurance Cover: Jumped from 41.0% to 60.2% (Ayushman Bharat impact).
• Women’s Internet Use: Surged from 33.3% to 64.3%.

Critical Challenges 

• Lifestyle Disease Surge: Diabetes rose to 20.9% for men and 17.8% for women.
• Obesity Double Burden: Overweight women hit 30.7% globally (42.8% in urban areas).
• High C-Sections: Unnecessary Caesarean deliveries continue to exceed WHO safety limits.
• Data Gaps: Dropping anemia metrics makes long-term policy monitoring difficult.

India’s GDP Base Year Revision

Indian Economy

Context

• India has revised its GDP base year from 2011–12 to 2022–23, resulting in changes to GDP estimates and growth rates to better reflect the current structure of the economy.

Why was the GDP series revised?

• • India periodically revises its GDP base year to reflect changes in the economy’s structure, production patterns, consumption behavior, and data availability.
  • Such revisions are usually undertaken every five years, but this exercise was delayed due to the implementation of GST and the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The objective is to improve the accuracy and reliability of national income estimates.

Connect with the basics – Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

• Definition – It is the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s domestic territory during a specific period (usually a quarter or a year).
• Released By: National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
• Calculation of GDP: GDP is calculated using three main methods;

1. The Expenditure Approach: This method sums up all spending on final goods and services in the economy.
2. The Income Approach: This method sums all incomes earned by factors of production (labor, capital).
3. The Production/Value-Added Approach: This method adds up the value added by each industry at every stage of production.

Nominal Vs Real GDP

• Nominal GDP measures a country’s economic output at current market prices, thereby incorporating the effects of inflation and making it useful for assessing the economy’s size in present-value terms.
• Real GDP adjusts for inflation by valuing output at constant base-year prices, providing a more accurate measure of actual growth in production over time.

Base Year

• A base year is a benchmark year used for comparison in economic and statistical calculations. 

• It provides a reference point against which current values of indicators like GDP, CPI, and IIP are measured to track real changes over time.