New Delhi: We now have the Prime Minister’s word for it. Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday that data collection and presentation by government agencies, especially in sectors like agriculture, have become “increasingly unreliable”. His comments at the first-ever meeting with state statistics ministers assume significance as international markets now closely track Indian data.
Singh said the “government is a poor user and presenter of information”. Lamenting the poor quality of official data, Singh said industrial statistics have weakened considerably and data used to estimate agricultural production has become increasingly unreliable.
Economists and fund managers have of late begun questioning the accuracy of several data like the index of industrial production (IIP) and the wholesale price index (WPI). The IIP has been questioned for under-reporting the growth of industry, while large-scale revisions in WPI have made the inflation yardstick questionable.
“Government is both a producer and consumer of information. To be effective in public policy, we also need to promote multiple sources of information,” Singh said.
Conceding that primary data collection and recording are key problems, the PM said, “Over the years, the administrative statistical system has been deteriorating and has now almost collapsed in certain sectors: agriculture, labour, industry and commerce.” Singh was citing a National Statistical Commission report, which had pointed to deterioration at the primary data collection stage itself.
Though the 11 th Plan contains a Rs 705-crore scheme to computerise the nation’s statistical system, the PM stressed that in itself, that would not improve the quality of official data. He urged greater cooperation between the Central Statistical Organisation, central ministries and state governments.
Singh, the architect of India’s liberalisation programme, attributed the weakening of industrial data flows to government to the removal of industrial licensing norms in the 1990s. While the spurt in Indian enterprise over the last 15 years has led to rapid growth in the number of industrial and service establishments, there is now no compulsion for periodic submission of data, unlike during the licence raj.
On the other hand, agricultural data still relies heavily on the old land revenue system that has weakened over the years. Singh pointed out that this has affected the estimates of land use, which are central to any estimate of agricultural production and made data increasingly unreliable.
More needs to be done with satellite imagery technology before it can be adopted for agricultural data, he said.
Given the dramatic surge in funds for flagship social sector programmes, Singh called for independent evaluation, over and above those conducted by the concerned ministries and the Planning Commission. He asked the planning commission, the ministry of finance and the department of statistics to work out an institutional mechanism whereby the talent pool in the country’s research institutions could be roped in for this.
The Centre is reviewing its data sharing policies to bring all non-strategic information to the public domain. “Information collected at huge cost, with taxpayers money, should be made available to the general public without their having to ask for it. This will improve the quality of the data, as it will be subject to informed public scrutiny,” the PM said.
