The Economic Survey for 2019-20 contains an unexplained oddity relating to education expenditure in 2015-16, perplexing statisticians and economists, while painting a rosy picture of increased spending in the social sector over the past five years.

It pegs the combined education spend by the states and the Centre in 2015-16 at Rs 3.92 lakh crore, or 2.8 per cent of the GDP that year.

However, the Economic Survey for 2017-18, tabled in Parliament two years ago, showed the expenditure on education by the Centre and the states in 2015-16 as Rs 3.31 lakh crore, or 2.4 per cent of the GDP.

The increase from Rs 3.31 lakh crore to Rs 3.92 lakh crore is about 18 per cent.

Both the 2019-20 and 2017-18 reports said that education expenditure referred to the combined spending on education, sports, art and culture. Also, the figures for 2015-16 in both the reports were based on the actual expenditure, not the revised estimate or budgetary estimate.

“Sometimes data may come in a little late, but the figure of actual spending cannot increase by 18 per cent. This increase is surprising,” a retired bureaucrat who worked in the National Statistical Office said.

Another retired official said that if the mismatch had related to the percentage of the GDP alone, rather than the expenditure figures, it would not have been so surprising since the GDP figure is often revised.

“If they have taken the data from the Central Statistical Office, the data on the GDP may change (at a later date); GDP data keep changing,” said P.C. Mohanan, former acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission.

But the figure of actual expenditure should not change, an economist insisted. He said the Narendra Modi government’s record on the handling and release of data has been dubious.

The government has attracted criticism for sitting on reports without publishing them because they contained unflattering figures.

The Economic Survey for 2019-20 said that education had received Rs 6.43 lakh crore in the 2019-20 budget estimate, accounting for 3.1 per cent of the GDP. In the revised estimate for 2018-19, the sector got Rs 5.81 lakh crore, which too was 3.1 per cent of the GDP for that financial year.

It said the expenditure on social service as a proportion of the GDP had increased from 6.2 per cent to 7.7 per cent during the period 2014-15 to 2019-20.

“An increase was witnessed across all social sectors during this period. For education, it increased from 2.8 per cent in 2014-15 to 3.1 per cent in 2019-20,” the report said.