The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has refuted the claims by media portal The Wire over the resignation of two members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC). The two independent members of NSC, P C Mohanan and J V Meenakshi resigned for “not able to discharge the Commission’s responsibility.” The term of Mohanan was to end in June 2020, he is a former member of Indian Statistical Service while Meenakshi whose term was to end the same time is a professor at the Delhi School of Economics.
However, left-liberal media organization The Wire wrote that “sore issue was delays in the release of the new NSSO employment survey data, which was vetted by the statistical body. The new survey data, called ‘periodic labour force survey’, has not been made public even though it was approved by the NSC in December.” Over this issue, the ministry said that “NSSO is processing the quarterly data for the period July 2017 to December 2018 and the report will be released thereafter.”
The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation in the press release said that “reports from a section of media have suggested that the Members had expressed certain concerns on the functioning of the Commission including release of the labour force survey results and the Back Series of GDP. These concerns were not expressed by the Members in any of the meetings of the Commission in the last few months.”
The ministry also clarified that the new survey is being done to improve measures of employment data and this is important to take into account the country’s demographic dividend and 93 percent informal workforce. The government needs to take measures for the formalization of the workforce and economy. “In this direction, MoSPI has started bringing out estimates of new subscribers and members enrolling in large social security schemes like the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Scheme and the National Pension Scheme (NPS),” said press release by the ministry.
The media organization also claimed that Modi government has found itself in many controversies over data on various measures “most recently over the release of the back-series GDP data.” The ministry also gave clarification over this and said that “In so far as the Back Series of the GDP is concerned, the National Statistical Commission had itself urged the Ministry to finalise and release it. The official estimates of the Back Series of GDP were accordingly computed using the methodology adopted in the 2011-12 Base Year series and this was approved by the experts in the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, which is the appropriate body. This was later discussed in the National Statistical Commission. Moreover, the methodology adopted by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation for the Back Series is available in the public domain.”
The credibility of new GDP data was verified by economists across the political spectrum contrary to the claims of The Wire. The other macroeconomic indicators like savings rate, investment rate, and consumption trends supported the new GDP growth data. “Barring FY 08, annual GDP year-on-year growth trend hasn’t changed. Even this data also shows deceleration in investment rate from 39.8 percent in FY 11 to 30.6 percent in FY 18 and decline in gross savings rate to 29.6 percent in FY 17 from 36.2 percent in FY 11. These are the major economic challenges which Indian economy is currently facing,” said Devendra Kumar Pant Chief economist at India ratings.