{"id":250179,"date":"2023-06-30T20:11:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T14:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=250179"},"modified":"2023-08-31T15:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T09:31:39","slug":"india-needs-a-stronger-statistical-system-for-better-policymaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-needs-a-stronger-statistical-system-for-better-policymaking\/","title":{"rendered":"India needs a stronger statistical system for better policymaking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cIndia needs a stronger statistical<\/strong> system for better policymaking\u201d <\/strong>published in livemint<\/strong> on 30<\/strong>th June 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Governance \u2013 Government Policies for various sectors<\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>Need of data in effective policy making<\/p>\n

News- <\/strong>Official statistics provide crucial inputs to policymaking in any modern democracy. The last 75 years have seen change in India\u2019s economy and society \u00a0so our statistical system also need to change accordingly.<\/p>\n

What are the issues with respect to the present statistical system?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Firstly, <\/strong>the statistical<\/strong> system has been politicized<\/strong> and has largely lost its independence. While all governments have been complicit, the credibility<\/strong> of the statistical system is now under threat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, 2017-18 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES)<\/strong> \u00a0was junked without any public debate.In their absence, we are using national accounts and inflation data that is more<\/strong> than a decade old <\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similarly, for the first time after independence, India is unlikely to have<\/strong> the decennial population<\/strong> Census<\/strong> amounts to another attempt at denying access to vital data.<\/p>\n

Data on caste as part<\/strong> of the SECC 2011<\/strong> is yet to be released despite demands from the general public and academic community.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>ly<\/strong>,<\/strong> even when data has been released, there were attempts to denigrate and delegitimize it. <\/strong>The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is an example<\/strong> which faced unnecessary and irrelevant criticism .<\/p>\n

Finally,<\/strong> for every official statistics, there is plenty of alternative data that is<\/strong> thrown up<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Data-sets on employment, poverty, inequality, education and even basic population numbers are essential<\/strong> inputs for several government programmes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Public availability of such data would let researchers generate<\/strong> debates <\/strong>on various important matters of governance.<\/p>\n

In fact, credible data is no less essential to a democracy<\/strong> than a free press.<\/p>\n

The need of the hour is to strengthen the country\u2019s statistical<\/strong> system<\/strong> to reflect these changes and provide better-quality data.<\/p>\n

An essential prerequisite for this is that the system<\/strong> is given the independence<\/strong> needed to generate data without fear or favour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cIndia needs a stronger statistical system for better policymaking\u201d published in livemint on 30th June 2023. Syllabus: GS2- Governance \u2013 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… Continue reading India needs a stronger statistical system for better policymaking<\/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":[300,212,10501],"class_list":["post-250179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-governance","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250179","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=250179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}