{"id":241391,"date":"2023-05-08T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=241391"},"modified":"2023-05-08T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T15:00:08","slug":"without-data-the-governments-policy-prescriptions-are-just-guesswork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/without-data-the-governments-policy-prescriptions-are-just-guesswork\/","title":{"rendered":"Without data, the government\u2019s policy prescriptions are just guesswork"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cWithout data, the government\u2019s policy prescriptions are just guesswork\u201d <\/strong>published in \u201cThe Indian Express\u201d <\/strong>on 8th May 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Government policies and interventions<\/p>\n

What are issues with data collection in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

India has always conducted a single decennial Census<\/strong> between 1881 and 2011, including in 1941 at the height of World War II.<\/p>\n

HCE surveys<\/strong> that provides data on consumption<\/strong> of food and non-food items were carried out every five years or less \u2014 in 1972-73, 1977-78, 1983, 1987-88, 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2004-05, 2009-10 and 2011-12.<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s been no Census after 2011. The National Statistical Office<\/strong> did an HCE survey in 2017-18, but its findings were not released.<\/p>\n

There are claims and counterclaims about poverty levels <\/strong>without any real data on consumption <\/strong>by different classes of the population.<\/p>\n

Even the CMIE\u2019s longitudinal Consumer Pyramids Household Survey<\/strong> only tracks monthly values and not actual quantities consumed of some 153 items.<\/p>\n

The attitude of the government agencies responsible for undertaking the Census and HCE surveys is problematic.<\/p>\n

What is one major example highlighting the unreasonableness of statistical exercises undertaken in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The unreasonableness of the statistical exercis<\/strong>e can be highlighted through statistics relating to milk consumption and official production estimates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As per 2011-12 HCE survey<\/strong>, the monthly per capita consumptio<\/strong>n of milk was 4.33 litres for rural and 5.42 litres for urban India. These translated into a daily per capita of 149 gm and 186 gm respectively or a simple average of 167.5 gm.<\/p>\n

The 167.5 gm average consumption <\/strong>was well below the daily per capita milk production estimate<\/strong> of 289 gm for 2011-12 by the department of animal husbandry and dairying. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The difference can partly be attributed to the HCE survey <\/strong>covering only milk consumed by households<\/strong>. It excludes the milk consumed by businesses<\/strong> such as tea shops and hotels.<\/p>\n

But even if such consumption was taken at 50% over and above that by households, it would add up to just over 251 gm.<\/p>\n

The gap between the survey-based per capita household consumption and estimated per capita production<\/strong> has increased over times.<\/p>\n

The production data on milk shows the country\u2019s milk production has an average annual growth rate of 6.1%. During the same period, however, average liquid milk sales of cooperative dairies have grown by just 3.6 per cent per year.<\/p>\n

Production data is not reflected in consumption<\/strong>. There is a mismatch between supply grow and demand growth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the importance of the census?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Census isn\u2019t a mere population enumeration exercise<\/strong>. It contains information on everything <\/strong>from housing conditions, inter and intra-state migration flows, gender, age, linguistic and religious profiles. It is vital for effective policy formulation and economic analysis.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cWithout data, the government\u2019s policy prescriptions are just guesswork\u201d published in \u201cThe Indian Express\u201d on 8th May 2023. Syllabus: GS2- Government policies and interventions What are issues with data collection in India? India has always conducted a single decennial Census between 1881 and 2011, including in 1941… Continue reading Without data, the government\u2019s policy prescriptions are just guesswork<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-241391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704670637},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}