CSO-NSSO Merger: More Than Meets The Eye?
To build a robust statistical system, Indian statistical institutions should be free from government institutions.
The recent decision by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation to merge the Central Statistical Office and the National Sample Survey Office under one agency named as the National Statistical Office has raised many questions about the independence, especially of the NSSO, from the government.
This adds to the already existing controversy with regard to the credibility of GDP data and employment statistics. The recent release of the Periodic Labour Force Survey by the Ministry, which is same as the one cleared by the erstwhile National Statistical Commission but not released by the Ministry earlier, has only added to the demand for a more independent national statistical system.
The merger of the CSO and the NSSO, however, may not deliver on that.
On the face of it, the merger is indeed part of the recommendations included in the Report of the National Statistical Commission (Rangarajan Committee) of 2001. To ensure effective coordination horizontally among the different departments at the Centre, the committee ‘proposed a restructuring of the existing Statistics Wing of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation into a full-fledged Department of the Ministry to be known hereafter as the National Statistical Organisation’.
Although, the committee recommended a merger of four wings, including the Consultancy Wing, the recent order opts for a merger of only three wings. At this point, the merger looks more like internal restructuring rather than a structural change in the country’s statistical architecture.
The second point to note is that the Rangarajan Committee had recommended that the NSO should be headed by the Chief Statistician of India. The recent order is ambiguous on this. It does not talk about a Chief Statistician of India, instead it only speaks of a ‘Secretary (S&PI)’.
As we understand, it is the Chief Statistician of India who also becomes Secretary (S&PI) and not the other way. This ambiguity puts into question whether there will be a ‘Chief Statistician of India’ any more in the future.
The recent order suggests that the government has taken a pick-and-choose approach to the Rangarajan Committee recommendations.
While suggesting the NSO, the commission had also made a major recommendation for the “creation of a permanent and statutory apex body – the National Commission of Statistics – independent of the Government and responsible to the Parliament in respect of policy making, coordination and certification of quality of Core Statistics”.
This should have been a pre-condition for the merger of CSO and NSSO, but unfortunately, that has not been the case. This is where the major concern lies and not in the merger itself.
The order does not mention the role of the existing National Statistical Commission, under which the NSSO was functioning until recently. This could be misconstrued to suggest that MoSPI and its officials may not be comfortable if there is any regulatory body above the Ministry.
This may be observed from the fact that Ministry depended more on NITI Aayog, and not on NSC, for releasing the new GDP back series numbers as well as for defending the stalling of the Periodic Labour Force Survey results, that got leaked.
Another example for this uncomfortable relation between Ministry and the NSC is, although it might look minor, the way the ministry provided the Rangarajan Committee report on its website. On the page where the recommendations of the report are presented, it provides only up to page-76 of the report’s first volume and ignores almost 20 pages of recommendations after that. These are largely related to reforming and restricting of Indian Statistical System. Currently the web page, under ‘Indian Statistical System’ provides recommendations of agricultural statistics! The rest of the committee’s recommendations are somewhere in a big bulky second volume, which make it difficult to trace the specific recommendations of the committee.
While much has been written about the recent developments in the statistical system in India, there is an urgent need for restructuring and strengthening the national statistical system, both at a computational and an institutional level. While the polity may deem this as an insignificant issue, as I have written elsewhere, if India has to make progress on an economic and social front, there is a need for a robust statistical system as all the economic agents depend heavily on reliable statistics.
Having a strong and independent statistical system away from the government does more good to the country than otherwise. India was known for its contributions to statistical sciences through the works of some legendary statisticians such as PC Mahalanobis, CR Rao (a living legend who is entering into his centenary year the coming September), among many others. This happened largely due to the freedom and independence that the profession got in the past. Surely, there are many lessons to be learned from the past.
NR Bhanumurthy is Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BloombergQuint or its editorial team.