Statistics body may get more teeth

NEW DELHI: Faced with criticism over official data, India plans to give more teeth to the National Statistical Commission (NSC) by constituting it as a public corporation by law, entrusting it with powers to regulate and audit core statistics besides giving it financial autonomy starting with an endowment fund of Rs 500 crore.

NSC is the apex advisory body on statistical matters and the government has proposed the National Statistical Commission Bill to strengthen its existing institutional and legal framework which have been found to be inadequate for producing India’s official statistics.

The ideas are part of the proposed National Policy on Official Statistics. “Statistics should be independent of the government and not be influenced by the immediate administration,” said a senior statistics ministry official.


Core statistics such as national income and growth data, industrial production and inflation numbers besides budgetary data related to capital and revenue, currency and deposit-related indicators and capital market instruments such as foreign institutional investments could come under the commission’s auditory scanner if the policy makes its way through.

Further, to exclude any government official from becoming member of the commission, the Bill provides for appointment of the chairperson and members to be made on the basis of recommendations of a committee chaired by the prime minister with representation from the opposition. No officer of the government will be included as a member in the NSC.

ROLE OF CHIEF STATISTICIAN
The statistics ministry has proposed to constitute an all India Statistical Service citing existence of gaps in availability of needed information, delays in publication of results, large and frequent revisions of published results, gross discrepancies between official statistics from different sources and lack of transparency in statistical operations.

The policy suggests discontinuing with the role of the Chief Statistician of India as secretary to the NSC and doing away with the usage of the terms Central Statistics Office and National Sample Survey Office. Instead, the two will be treated as being under a single entity called the National Statistical Organisation.