India, Sept. 3 -- The Union Government on Wednesday dismissed claims that the first-quarter economic growth was closer to 2.6 per cent, asserting the 7.8 per cent expansion is backed by solid output data.

"It is unfortunate that comparison is being made of apples and oranges," said Saurabh Garg, Secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). He made the statement following remarks by a former finance secretary, Subhash Chandra Garg, that GDP growth would have been about 2.6 per cent in current prices if last year's GDP had not been revised down from roughly Rs 86 lakh crore to Rs 80 lakh crore.

The statistics secretary said the argument was flawed because it compared current-price figures rather than const...