''CORPORATE INDIA'S CROWNING'' : 3/4

INDIA'S economy is for sure growing, So is skepticism.

The new method - which India has embraced - relies on financial data reported to the government.

The financial results of 900,000 companies incorporated in India are accessed to gauge the country's total economic activity.

India is one of the first developing countries to adapt this method.

But small businesses abound in India, and until the past couple of years they operated almost entirely on cash. This so-called informal economy, including agriculture, represents nearly half of India's  economic output.

The new statistical method assumes that the informal economy will go up and down in parallel to the incorporated companies.

Most of the time, that is a fair assumption, said Pronab Sen, a long time civil servant who oversaw India's economic statistics and the introduction of the new system before retiring in 2016.

But small businesses were less able to cope with some big structured changes of the Modi years, he said.

''Corporate India is doing very well,'' Mr. Sen said. ''Noncorporate India, which accounts for about 45 percent of the economy is not.''

Mr. Modi abruptly recalled the country's large denomination currency bills in November 2016. It was a mostly unsuccessful effort to catch people skirting taxes.

Large businesses could adapt by asking customers to use credit cards or bank wire transfers for easier transactions. Small businesses, reliant on cash, suffered months of severe disruption.

Seven months later, in summer 2017, a single value-added tax was introduced, partly to better monitor taxable revenue.

The new tax replaced a labyrinth of 17 state and national taxes, and considerably curtailed widespread bribery and between businesses and tax collectors.

Big businesses could afford to lure specialists to cope with the change and the government's buggy software small businesses struggled, and are still struggling to adjust.

Government economic statistics have not measured the divergence between how small and large businesses were affected by the reforms.

The Modi campaign ran partly on its efforts to free businesses from red tape, but provided no data from the past two years on joblessness, a key indicator of the informal sector's health.

The honor and serving of the latest operational research on India and Economy, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Keith Bradsher.