Draft official stats policy framed, MPLADS evaluation this year: Rao Inderjit Singh

Minister of state (independent charge) of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation Rao Inderjit Singh on Wednesday informed Parliament that his ministry has formulated a Draft National Policy on Official Statistics and has held consultations with various stakeholders.

Singh said that the ministry regularly brings out different macro-economic aggregates and indicators, and the statistical processes involved in producing such estimates are open, transparent and in line with the best international practices and standards.

“The processes are evolved after detailed deliberations in various technical committees and the recommendations thereon are placed in the public domain,” he told Lok Sabha in a written reply.


On the issue of addressing the data quality issues with regard to various surveys and vetting of the information collected, the minister said that quality checks are done in different stages such as during the process of data collection through effective supervision, immediately after the completion of field work, after transcription of data to the electronic mode, and after generation of tables based on the data collected. The ministry follows a rigorous procedure for validating the data collected through different surveys, he said.

In a separate reply, Singh said the ministry undertakes survey of works completed under Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) from time to time.

“During the current year also it is proposed to undertake the same for evaluation of the scheme,” he said.

Last such study/ survey was conducted in selected district through independent agencies in 2012-13.