Under fire for data integrity issues, the government has appointed a new panel to revise the wholesale price index (WPI). The 31-member panel, to be headed by Planning Commission Member, Dr Saumitra Chaudhuri, has also been asked to explore the possibility of getting a single agency to collect data for WPI as well as industrial production that are currently dealt with by separate wings of the government.

The declining quality of official statistics relating to the economy has been a serious concern to economists, researchers, analysts and policy makers in recent years. In recent months, economists as well as the RBI have been critical of the official data and the central bank had gone to the extent of terming it “analytically bewildering”.

Official statistics are required for planning and policy formulation and any weakness in statistics would result in erroneous planning and policy-making.

In a country such as India, an important feature of the decentralised statistical system is that statistics produced at the Centre is required for the States and vice-versa . Hence there is a need for proper and effective co-ordination between the Centre and the States.

LEGISLATIVE MEASURES

In this connection, a recent committee appointed under the chairmanship of Prof N. R. Madhava Menon, Dr S. Radhakrishnan Chair on Parliamentary Studies (Rajya Sabha), has submitted a valuable report in October 2011 on Legislative Measures in Statistical Matters as adopted by the National Statistical Commission. The Committee was constituted by the National Statistical Commission.

The Committee wants enactment of a law to make the National Statistical Commission (NSC) a statutory corporation.

To ensure public trust in official statistics, the NSC must be kept independent of the executive. It should be responsible to Parliament and assisted by a network of statistical professionals at the Centre and the States, led by the Chief Statistician of India. A crucial manner by which the Commission can reinforce its independence is to make it financially independent by creating an endowment fund of Rs 500 crore.

It is also stipulated that the Commission must have a Secretariat, headed by an officer not below the rank of an Additional Secretary to the Government of India. Since the pith and substance relating to core statistics has implications in the Centre-State relations in the areas of official statistics, the Committee recommends constitution of a National Statistical Development Council (NSDC) under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister to give directions to the Commission on related policy matters.

The National Statistical Organisation (NSO), under the leadership of the Chief Statistician of India, ably supported by designated officers in different Government Departments at the Centre and in the States, shall be the main machinery to co-ordinate implementation of the directions of the Commission on core statistics. Besides, all persons engaged in any activity on core statistics, shall comply with the directions of the Commission on core statistics.

FOR BETTER CO-ORDINATION

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) is the nodal agency for a planned development of the statistical system in the country and for bringing about co-ordination in statistical activities among statistical agencies in the Government of India and the State/UT Directorates of Economics and Statistics.

Even so, there are many problems in the area of proper co-ordination. The Department of Planning and Statistics is virtually dysfunctional in many states and the person appointed in this department as a minister feels that he has been given an “unimportant” portfolio. Hence the Committee feels it is necessary to constitute an All India Statistical Service by combining the Indian Statistical Service, State Statistical Services and other Group ‘A' Statistical posts/cadres in the Central and State Governments.

WAY FORWARD

A credible and reliable database is essential to enable the policy-makers to formulate and implement policies. A reliable economic database helps in the development and monitoring of public intervention programmes. It also helps researchers to analyse the behaviour of the economy in all its dimensions.

As many experts have pointed out, the weaknesses of the Indian statistical database arise more out of the inertia of the data gathering and dissemination agencies of the government rather than any resistance from the population being surveyed or enumerated. Hence, serious efforts are needed to remedy this situation and ensure that the time lag in data gathering and dissemination is minimised.

One can only hope that the present government at the Centre, badly affected by governance deficit and policy paralysis, will find time to deliberate on the recommendations of this Committee and go for the much-needed legislative measures suggested by it within a reasonable time-frame.

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