BJP MPs have blocked the adoption of the Parliament’s Estimates Committee report that questioned the mechanism for calculating the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the job data, said media reports.

This is the third report of a Standing Committee to be blocked due to protests by BJP members, noted a NDTV report.

The parliamentary panel headed by veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, in a draft report prepared by it, has questioned the mechanism for calculating the country’s GDP and asserted that the methodology needs review to reflect the ground reality, reported The Hindu.

The report also questions the reliability of employment data collected by the government, reported NDTV.

The report, which was tabled in the Estimates Committee meeting on Thursday, created a rift among the BJP parliamentarians of the panel, as Joshi was in favour of adopting the report, while other party members led by MP Nishikant Dubey strongly opposed it, The Hindu said.

“Detailed examination reveals several inadequacies in the GDP measuring mechanism, most noticeable being depletion of natural resources not being taken into consideration,” the report stated.

It also said there is no mechanism to assess whether increase in GDP leads to happiness among the people.

The committee concluded that the mechanism developed for GDP estimation needs review and it should reflect the ground reality.

Countering the claims in the report, Dubey said India has adopted and followed all globally accepted parameters for calculating the GDP, and in an era of globalisation, the country cannot isolate itself by developing an indigenous method to calculate the index.

He further said if the country does so, it will severely impact flow of foreign investment and the country’s ratings by international agencies.

About calculation of unemployment in the country, the report claimed annual employment and unemployment surveys have their own limitations, and said it is disturbing to note that the most precise period for which complete data on employment is available is 2011-12.

As per sources, the draft report of the Estimates Committee on “measuring growth, employment and income” asks the government on how it can address the critical issue of unemployment if it does not have “real time” and “holistic” data.

It points out that the latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) survey on employment was carried on in 2011. The Labour Bureau started carrying out quarterly employment surveys only since April 2016. And that too covers non-farm eight major sectors and it does not reflect the work force engaged in establishments having less than 10 workers which constitute 98% of the establishments, the report notes.

The report also criticises the sample size of the NSSO survey which had only 600 sample villages. The report has criticised the approach as “casual and shoddy”.

Noting these constraints, the draft report said: “With the aforesaid scenario whereby up-to-date realistic position about the employment at a particular time on various important parameters is not available, the committee fails to understand how the critical issue of unemployment in the country can be addressed.”

In the committee’s meeting held on Thursday, BJP members led by Jharkhand MP Nishikant Dubey and Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri first protested, claiming that they had not got adequate time to read the report.

Joshi countered saying that the report was circulated on October 3 and each member was given multiple reminders to read it.

Dubey, according to sources, said that evidence of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has not been adequately recorded.

Joshi, according to sources, snapped at Dubey, asking him to read the report closely before making such charges.

A few BJP members reportedly pressed for a dissent note, to which Joshi did not agree. He reportedly told both the BJP MPs that financial committees like the estimates committee, according to Parliamentary conventions, do not carry any notes of dissent as they are based on the data provided by the government itself. So what the labour ministry submits is sacrosanct.

Significantly, said a report in The Wire, even while the meeting was going on, BJP leader Vijay Goel, who is not a member of the committee, was seen outside and communicating with the party MPs. Sources say that Goel was sent as an emissary by BJP president Amit Shah.

A Reserve Bank of India-backed research report stated that during the first two years of the Modi administration, employment in 27 sectors fell by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively, said The Wire report. This happened even though GDP growth was at a decent 7.4% and 8.2% in 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively. This resulted in a loss of nearly 10 lakh jobs, according to the research.

Independent estimates of job situation, such as by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), also have not painted a flattering picture, the report pointed out.

In the last year, Modi has given a number of interviews to friendly publications, wherein he has stated that “jobs were being created but the data did not reflect them”. He has often claimed that work such as “pakoda frying” are productive jobs but are not reflected in organised sector data.

Significantly, the government has shown little respect for parliamentary checks and balances. Last month, it removed the BJP’s own BC Khanduri as the chairman of the defence committee, replacing him with Kalraj Mishra, after the committee gave a report which made adverse remarks on India’s defence preparedness.

BJP members also derailed a report of the standing committee on external affairs chaired by congress MP, Shashi Tharoor which had taken the government to task over the Doklam stand-off with China.