Statistical reform has begun: How far will it go?

New surveys are being planned. Engagement with data users has become much more open and frequent. Mospi’s strained relationship with the National Statistical Commission (NSC) appears to be on the mend.

A push for change has come from the top. Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the finance ministry seem to have realized that India’s statistical crisis has hurt the credibility of official numbers. 

As reported in this newspaper earlier (‘Statistical system now under PMO scanner,’ 23 January 2024), a roadmap for statistical reforms was prepared by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). This was followed by discussions with key stakeholders, including Mospi officials and NSC chairman Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar.

Also read: Centre working on multi-pronged approaches to reform its statistical systems

In April, the government appointed a new Mospi secretary, Saurabh Garg, to implement its reform agenda. Garg seems to have hit the ground running. 

Over the past six months, Mospi has organized a number of data-user conferences to clarify doubts and questions related to some key surveys. It has reached out to business houses to take inputs for a new capex survey. 

It has reached out to academic institutions to collaborate on statistical research projects. It has initiated plans to revise some of India’s key statistical indices. The committees set up for these revisions appear to be more diverse than earlier.

A key pain point in India’s data ecosystem relates to the use of administrative data-sets. Different ministries tend to have different definitions and metadata standards, making it difficult to get data-sets to talk to each other. 

To address this issue, Mospi has set up a new division on administrative statistics that will harmonize data standards across ministries, said a senior Mospi official who did not wish to be identified. 

The division will provide manuals to handle administrative data-sets and periodically assess how far those manuals are being followed. A pilot project on harmonizing data standards and assessing data quality across a few ministries has already begun, according to the official cited above.

Responding to demands for more timely data, Mospi is trying to provide a monthly series on employment rates based on the periodic labour force survey (PLFS). 

Given the failure of the 7th economic census (see ‘A delayed economic census exposes a federal faultline,’ 10 October 2022), the ministry plans to launch a new economic census next year. 

Also read: P.C. Mohanan: Tapping data to define the India story

Mospi officials are now trying to rope in state statistical bureaus to help generate district-level estimates for new surveys and meet the growing demand for granular data.

These initiatives are very promising. Yet, to ensure that the reform momentum sustains and the credibility of official statistics is maintained, India will need an empowered, autonomous and accountable statistical regulator. The NSC was supposed to play this role when it was set up in 2005. 

The government resolution that announced its creation said that the new body would exercise the powers of “statistical audit" to ensure the quality and integrity of official statistics, and help improve “public trust" in statistics. The resolution said that the NSC would be backed by a law “within one year."

Nearly two decades later, the NSC is yet to get statutory backing. It has struggled to meet the lofty goals for which it was set up. It has had to fight turf battles with the chief statistician, who assumed operational control over the statistical system.

Barring one audit of the index of industrial production (IIP) in 2011, the NSC has failed to produce any statistical audit report. The lack of resources and legal backing limited its role to the supervision of National Sample Survey (NSS) work. Even that role came under a cloud in the period from 2018 to 2023.

Over the past six months, the NSC seems to have reclaimed its earlier role in supervising NSS work. A steering committee appointed by the NSC oversees all survey-related work now. 

This is similar to the institutional mechanism devised by the first NSC in the late 2000s to monitor NSS surveys. The standing committee on statistics, which appeared to infringe on the NSC’s turf, has been disbanded.

To reduce the scope of conflict between Mospi and the NSC, the post of chief statistician has been abolished. Garg is the first Mospi secretary since 2007 who has not been awarded the title of ‘chief statistician of India.’

The government wants Garg to be the sole authority on administrative decisions and Karandikar to act as the de facto conscience-keeper of the statistical system. Both Karandikar and Garg seem to have accepted this arrangement.

Also read: Data users need clarity on numbers from the statistics ministry

However, it is not clear how long this arrangement will last. Can Karandikar and Garg’s successors avoid stepping on each other’s toes? Can a legally enfeebled and financially deprived NSC effectively regulate a complex statistical system? Without credible accountability mechanisms, can the NSC ever function with authority?

Until questions related to regulatory design are answered convincingly, India’s statistical reform process will remain incomplete.