The first advanced estimates of economic output for the current financial year gives a picture of an economy rebounding robustly in the second half from the pandemic-induced slump of the preceding two quarters. The National Statistical Office on Thursday projected that GDP in the 12 months ending March would total almost Rs134.4-lakh crore in constant prices, reflecting a 7.7% contraction from the preceding year’s figure. To reach that level, the NSO has assumed that output will recover vigorously in the third and fourth quarters. After contracting by almost 16% in the April-September period, it sees GDP being just a mere Rs10,400 crore short of the year-earlier second half’s figure. This mathematical projection is hard to square with the economic reality revealed in both the NSO’s more detailed sectoral output forecasts as well as other emerging trends from ground-level activity. Both the expenditure side and gross value added across various industries point to the high degree of optimism implicit in the assumptions. Private consumption expenditure — the single biggest component propelling GDP, at well over 50% — is estimated to shrink 9.5% in the full year, after contracting nearly 19% in the first half. This presupposes that consumers have largely shed their wariness to spend in the face of Covid-19 and have begun to set about consuming goods and services at close to pre-pandemic levels, the dampening impact of lost jobs and reduced incomes notwithstanding. The NSO sees government final consumption expenditure rising 17% in the H2, erasing the H1’s contraction and buoying the annual figure to a growth of 5.8%. But the end-November fiscal deficit data show the government lagging well behind its budgeted revenue and capital expenditure targets. Things are apparently not the same as they actually appear.