So, why not build a more robust system?

Govt has had 9 years, why hasn’t it built a better statistical system

Criticism of the quality of economic data collected in the country, made by a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC), has brought into focus persistent doubts about the reliability of the country’s official data.

The member, Shamika Ravi, claimed that national surveys like the National Sample Survey (NSS), National Family Health Survey (NFHS), and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) are based on faulty sampling and therefore they underestimated the country’s achievements in poverty eradication and other areas of development in the last few years. Questions about data have also come from other members of the establishment.

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Other economists have contested Shamika Ravi’s view and claimed that she had misread the data. Some of them have said that there are issues with the data but they work in the opposite direction by underestimating poverty, unemployment and other important problems. It is strange that the government’s side is questioning the quality of its own data. This is considered by many as a defensive action by the government.

What the debate points to is the poor quality of official data and the government’s failure to maintain quality. There is persistent criticism that the government has been indifferent or deliberately negligent on the collection, analysis and maintenance of data. It has not published information on matters like unemployment even when it had the data. Two members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) resigned on this ground. About 100 eminent scholars released a statement pointing out that the quality of official statistics has deteriorated. There are delays in the consumer expenditure survey and the economic census. These delays affect the monthly inflation data and the GDP data. The most serious issue is the failure to hold the decennial census. It was first postponed because of the Covid pandemic but it now appears that the government does not plan to conduct it any time soon, perhaps not until the general elections at least.

Prior to 2014, India had the reputation for having a strong system and establishment for collection, analysis and application of data for purposes of governance. Reliable and adequate data is an essential requirement of policymaking and allocation of resources. It is especially important in a country that is demographically, socially, and economically changing fast. It is not just that reliable data is necessary for policy formulation, continuity of data is necessary for evolution of policy, too.

If the Modi government thought that India’s data is not reliable, then it has had nine years to build a more reliable and robust system. Why hasn’t it?