“The government has formed various Committees after the year 1947…including Standing Committee on Economic Statistics,” Minister of State for Statistics Rao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

The government on August 9 said Standing Committee on Economic Statistics has been renamed as Standing Committee on Statistics.

The Committee will advise Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on all surveys.

“The government has formed various Committees after the year 1947…including Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES),” Minister of State for Statistics Rao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

He further said SCES was renamed as Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS), which was constituted vide a MoSPI order dated July 13, 2023.

SCoS will review the extant framework and address the issues raised from time to time on the subject/results/methodology, etc related to all surveys as brought before SCoS by MoSPI. It will advise on survey methodology including sampling frame, sampling design, survey instruments, etc and to finalise tabulation plan of surveys. It will also aid finalisation of survey results.

The panel will provide guidance to conduct pilot surveys/pre-testing, if necessary, before finalising schedules for data collection. It will also provide guidance for study and exploring the availability of administrative statistics relating to surveys/statistics.

SCoS will also provide guidance for studying/identifying data gaps/additional data requirements, if any, in respect of surveys/statistics and suggest appropriate strategy for improvement.

The panel will provide technical guidance to the Central and State-level agencies for conducting the surveys.

It will also look into any other matter relating to the surveys/survey results referred to SCoS by MoSPI from time to time. SCES chaired by former chief statistician Pronab Sen was set up in December 2019 for improving quality of data amid criticism of the government over political interference.

In March 2019, expressing concerns over “political interference” in influencing statistical data in India, as many as 108 economists and social scientists had called for restoration of “institutional independence” and integrity to the statistical organisations.

Their statement had come against the backdrop of a controversy over revision of gross domestic product (GDP) numbers and withholding employment data by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).

Mr. Sen had said that for decades, India’s statistical machinery enjoyed a high level of reputation for the integrity of the data it produced on a range of economic and social parametres.

In November 2019, MoSPI had decided not to release the Consumer Expenditure Survey results of 2017-18, citing data quality issues.

In another reply to the House, Mr. Singh said two meetings of SCES have been held till now. The first meeting was held on January 7, 2020 and the second was held on February 10, 2021.

A Standing Committee on Statistics will review the framework and results of all surveys conducted under the aegis of the National Statistical Office. File illustration: Sebastian Francis

The government has constituted a new internal oversight mechanism for official data, revamping a Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES) set up in late 2019, soon after the findings from the last round of household surveys on consumption expenditure and employment were junked, citing ‘data quality issues’.

In an order issued last Thursday, the Statistics Ministry said that the SCES — which was tasked with examining economic indicators only — will now be replaced by a Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) which has a broader mandate to review the framework and results of all surveys conducted under the aegis of the National Statistical Office (NSO).

Editorial | Data, interrupted: On official household spending survey

Pronab Sen, India’s first chief statistician and the former chairman of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), has been named the chair of the new committee.

‘System overhaul needed’

The SCoS — with “enhanced terms of reference” vis-à-vis the SCES, “to ensure more coverage” — has 10 official members, and four non-official members who are eminent academics. The panel can have up to 16 members, as per the order issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

The development assumes significance amid sharp critiques of India’s statistical machinery by members of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, including its chairperson Bibek Debroy. He had mooted an overhaul of the system and contended that the Indian Statistical Service has “little expertise in survey design”.

“The term of the SCES was coming to an end in any case, so it was decided to expand the committee’s mandate beyond economic data and advise the Ministry on technical aspects for all surveys, such as sampling frame, design, survey methodology and finalisation of results,” an official said.

Plugging data gaps

Apart from addressing issues raised from time to time on the subject, results and methodology for all surveys, the SCoS’ terms of reference include the identification of data gaps that need to be filled by official statistics, along with an appropriate strategy to plug those gaps. It has also been mandated to explore the use of administrative statistics to improve data outcomes.

While the panel will help finalise survey results, the NSC will have the ultimate authority to approve the publication of those results. The government had reconstituted the NSC last December, appointing Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar, Professor Emeritus at the Chennai Mathematical Institute, as its part-time chairperson. While the NSC still has two vacancies, the appointments of Mr. Karandikar and two other part-time members were notified on May 30 this year.

The SCES, which had 28 members, including 10 non-official members, was also chaired by Mr. Sen. The panel was mandated to review the framework for economic indicators pertaining to the industrial sector, the services sector and the labour force statistics. This meant that their purview was limited to datasets like the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Annual Survey of Industries, the Index of Industrial Production and the Economic Census.