Active Stocks

Mon Feb 09 2026 15:59:18

Tata Steel share price
202.10 2.56%

State Bank of India share price
1,145.95 7.46%

ITC share price
322.55 -1.07%

Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd share price
377.30 2.00%

HDFC Bank share price
937.25 -0.41%

Business News > Mint Authors > Pramit Bhattacharya

Pramit Bhattacharya

Mint columnist

Pramit Bhattacharya is a Chennai-based journalist.

ARTICLES BY PRAMIT BHATTACHARYA

The use of formal sector proxies to estimate informal sector growth has been a longstanding complaint about the national accounts series. (istockphoto)

It’s time to lay the great Indian GDP controversy to rest

4 min read . 14 May 2025

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation's (Mospi) current leadership is keen to avoid mistakes of the past. (Mint)

Statistical dust-up: The great Indian GDP controversy needn’t have arisen

4 min read . 30 Apr 2025

An Enterprise Sample Registration System (ESRS) could help fill important gaps in our understanding of India’s invisible economy. (Hindustan Times)

India needs a better way to track its micro-enterprises

4 min read . 19 Mar 2025

Jobs have become an important part of India’s electoral and fiscal policy discourse. (REUTERS)

India’s central bank needs reliable & frequent employment data as a policy input

4 min read . 05 Feb 2025

The backing of the Indian state and the NSS team’s commitment to excellence both played a part in making it a role model for other countries.

Data reliability: Lessons from the 75-year-old National Sample Survey

4 min read . 08 Jan 2025

The capex survey needs to be based on a coherent and comprehensive business register.

India needs reliable data to track capital expenditure across the economy

4 min read . 11 Dec 2024

The inability of pollsters, academic institutions and media organizations to arrive at shared rules on how to conduct and broadcast polls has bred deep mistrust around polling.

Here’s how to rescue the opinion polling business in India

4 min read . 27 Nov 2024

Mospi is trying to provide a monthly series on employment rates based on the periodic labour force survey (PLFS).

Statistical reform has begun: How far will it go?

4 min read . 13 Nov 2024

The survey data suggests that unincorporated enterprises accounted for a lower share of gross value added in 2022-23 than they did in 2010-11.

Data deficiency: India needs to map its informal economy better

4 min read . 30 Oct 2024

Mospi’s mandarins seem to have finally realized that a culture of secrecy lowers trust in official statistics.

Data users need clarity on numbers from the statistics ministry

4 min read . 24 Jun 2024

The National Statistical Office (NSO) should have a dedicated unit for conducting pilot trials and methodological innovations.

Statistical reform needs key stakeholder consensus for implementation

4 min read . 10 Jun 2024

Faced with incomplete data-sets, economists of the day learned to complement quantitative techniques with other methods, including case studies and historical analysis.

Economists should reskill themselves for the age of AI

4 min read . 27 May 2024

Other than agriculture, for which annual data is available, estimates of informal sector output have typically relied on crude proxies or past trends.

Why has official Indian data on informal enterprises been kept under wraps?

3 min read . 13 May 2024

Greater transparency and a more vigilant set of officials ensured that the SECC database was robust in comparison with the old BPL lists.

India needs a reliable database to aim its welfare schemes better

4 min read . 29 Apr 2024

As long as there’s consensus on the minimum income (or expenditure) needed to maintain a life of dignity, and a reliable database of household income (or expenditure), estimating the number of poor households (those unable to afford a life of minimum dignity) is just a matter of simple arithmetic.

Poverty in India: Tracking it mustn’t become a casualty of politics

4 min read . 16 Apr 2024

Several flagship surveys of Mospi are now run without involving state directorates of economics and statistics.

The spatial spread of economic activities must be mapped for data accuracy

4 min read . 05 Dec 2023

One of the motivations behind the imperial censuses of the 19th century was to determine the relative weights of different social groups in the native population.

We need well-designed and nationally-accepted tools to measure social inequality

4 min read . 21 Nov 2023

Correcting for under-estimation of wealth in India’s official debt and investment surveys, their estimates suggest a marked rise in wealth inequality over the past decade.
(PTI)

India must fill data gaps on inequality before policy can address it properly

4 min read . 07 Nov 2023

A clear statement from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi) could have ended the debate on India's gross domestic production (GDP) numbers.

Official statisticians must learn to communicate better

4 min read . 26 Sept 2023

Although greater use of administrative data can reduce reliance on some kind of surveys, they do not eliminate their need in many other areas. (Photo: HT)

India’s draft policy on official statistics misses the mark

4 min read . 29 Aug 2023