UPI, government salaries may be used to measure growth in health, education services
The government's statistics ministry is contemplating incorporating data from UPI payments and government salaries to measure advancements in education, healthcare, and public administration and defense services. This proposal would expand the Index of Services Production (ISP), as announced by the ministry on Tuesday. Although a sub-committee within the ministry's Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics initially opposed using UPI data for the ISP's calculation of India's Gross Value Added (GVA), they now support it once UPI transactions become more stable.
The ministry stated that UPI is transitioning into a stable utility, and future growth is likely to stabilize. UPI, which turned ten years old this year, is being considered for measuring private sector educational and healthcare services through UPI payments, while public sector services will be evaluated using government salaries.
The ministry invites comments on this approach paper by October 16. The identification of UPI payments for these categories will be done through Merchant Category Codes, and salaries for relevant government staff will be obtained from the Public Financial Management System (PFMS). In August, Rs 25,635 crore was spent via UPI on education, Rs 16,976 crore on hospitals, and Rs 17,487 crore on government services, all contributing to 2.9%, 1.9%, and 2% of the total Person-to-Merchant UPI payments, respectively.
These three sub-sectors represent almost a fifth of the services sector's Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2024-25, which is approximately 7% for education, 3% for human health and residential care, and 11% for public administration and defense. Initially, health, education, and public administration and defense were not included in the ISP as the ministry hadn't established a method to measure their output.
After their inclusion, the ISP will cover around 78% of the services sector's GVA, leaving 22% or so unaccounted for, which will continue to be excluded.
Written by urgent.news from The Indian Express's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
