India needs a stronger statistical system for better policymaking

Source– The post is based on the article “India needs a stronger statistical system for better policymaking” published in livemint on 30th June 2023.

Syllabus: GS2- Governance – Government Policies for various sectors

Relevance: Need of data in effective policy making

News- Official statistics provide crucial inputs to policymaking in any modern democracy. The last 75 years have seen change in India’s economy and society  so our statistical system also need to change accordingly.

What are the issues with respect to the present statistical system?

Firstly, the statistical system has been politicized and has largely lost its independence. While all governments have been complicit, the credibility of the statistical system is now under threat.

For example, 2017-18 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES)  was junked without any public debate.In their absence, we are using national accounts and inflation data that is more than a decade old .

Similarly, for the first time after independence, India is unlikely to have the decennial population Census amounts to another attempt at denying access to vital data.

Data on caste as part of the SECC 2011 is yet to be released despite demands from the general public and academic community.

Secondly, even when data has been released, there were attempts to denigrate and delegitimize it. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is an example which faced unnecessary and irrelevant criticism .

Finally, for every official statistics, there is plenty of alternative data that is thrown up to raise doubts on the credibility of official statistics. Provident fund and pensions data was used to discredit the official employment statistics and create an alternative narrative.

What is the way forward?

Data-sets on employment, poverty, inequality, education and even basic population numbers are essential inputs for several government programmes.

Public availability of such data would let researchers generate debates on various important matters of governance.

In fact, credible data is no less essential to a democracy than a free press.

The need of the hour is to strengthen the country’s statistical system to reflect these changes and provide better-quality data.

An essential prerequisite for this is that the system is given the independence needed to generate data without fear or favour.