The Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) is an institution, specifically a 26-member committee established by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The committee is not a permanent body but is periodically reconstituted, with the current iteration formed in June 2024. It was created to address the problem of ensuring India's macroeconomic indicators remain relevant and accurate by aligning them with the latest economic structure and international standards. The historical precedent for this function was the National Income Committee (NIC), appointed in August 1949, which first compiled authoritative national income estimates.
The committee's mechanism involves advising MoSPI on the revision of the base year for national accounts, which is ideally done every 5 to 10 years as per the United Nations System of National Accounts (UN SNA)-2008. The current ACNAS, chaired by Biswanath Goldar, has a tenure of five years or until the completion of the next base year revision. Its key provisions include reviewing existing databases, advising on the inclusion of new data sources like GST data, and recommending the methodology for compilation and presentation of National Accounts Statistics. For operational feasibility, the ACNAS can constitute Sub-Committees with a maximum tenure of two years.
The ACNAS connects directly to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) and the National Statistical Office (NSO), which is responsible for the actual compilation. It also includes representatives from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), NITI Aayog, and the GST Network. A major function is to decide on the alignment of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) base year with other key indices like the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The committee has recently been working on a new series with FY 2022-23 as the base year, a change from the previous ACNAS recommendation of 2020-21.