EDITORIAL
The govt must ensure that verified statistical data is put in public domain
Statistics are a powerful tool – it is both easy to use it to lie as well as tell the truth. That was what some wag said, and this is very true. The relevance of this sector to our lives is often overlooked. But occasionally, things change, like in the past week when the Government of India’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation held its 18th national seminar in Goa.
This came as India observed its 75th anniversary of the National Sample Survey (NSS). The Government of India-conducted NSS is a crucial tool for collecting data on socio-economic indicators across the country. Behind the dry names and figures, statistics are crucial to all of us. Our world is increasingly driven by data – that is generated all the time by people, businesses, governments and machines. Statistics help make sense of this data, based on which we can make decisions, make predictions and plan policy. Statistics also helps to ensure accountability.
Politicians win or lose based on their understanding of data. Statistics can make a crucial difference in a range of fields – healthcare and epidemiology (tracking disease outbreaks or vaccine effectiveness), economics and finance, education (measuring learning outcomes), business and marketing, environmental science (climate models, pollution levels, disaster planning), AI (recommendation engines, facial recognition), and even in the social sciences (especially sociology, psychology, and anthropology, whether to test hypotheses or study social behaviour). Even sports are not spared. The ‘moneyball’ approach utilises data analysis and statistical insights to identify undervalued players and build competitive teams, instead of opting for traditional scouting methods.
Government statistics in India were prioritised in the colonial era, initially using basic data collection for administration. After Independence, a strong statistical base was seen as needed for economic planning. This led to the setting up of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO, 1951) and the National Sample Survey (NSS, 1950). Prof P C Mahalanobis – whom every student of Economics of an earlier generation has heard of – set up the Indian Statistical Institute. It designed and analysed the NSS.
Indian statistics face some questions of credibility, timeliness and utility. Under-reporting or misreporting can happen, especially on sensitive issues like employment, consumption and income. A lag in data releases is another matter that has come up. Some claim that less-flattering findings such as unemployment rates are suppressed or delayed for political reasons. Changes in survey methods is another subject under debate. India, with its considerable IT talent, could also move faster on its data digitisation plans instead of paper-based data collection, which still dominates some areas. Staff constraints, greater access to microdata, and the need to align NSS data with the Census, NFHS (National Family Health Survey), PLFS (Periodic Labour Force Surveys), or administrative datasets are also concerns.
Recently, in Goa, an issue that came up for discussion in academic and governmental circles was about the statistics on revenue generation as shown in the latest Economic Survey of Goa. Trusting the figures, newspapers published reports of high revenue from departments like Town & Country Planning (TCP) only to be told after a few days that the statistics were incorrect. The department concerned handling the Economic Survey report cannot get the figures wrong as the report is a crucial document for government and non-governmental institutions on the economic performance. This also raises the question of public trust in official statistics.
Despite the higher expectations, the need for society to grapple more seriously with its statistics cannot be denied.
