Why in the news?
● A new data panel on Statistics called
Standing Committee on Statistics(SCoS) has been formed replacing the earlier
Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES)
● Former Chief Statistician and former
Chairman of the National Statistical Commission Dr Pronab Sen, who was also the
head of the earlier SCES will be heading the new SCoS.
Mandates of the New data panel:
1. To provide guidance to conduct pilot
surveys/ pre-testing before the schedules for data collection are decided upon.
2. To provide guidance for studying and
exploring the availability of administrative statistics relating to surveys or
statistics.
3. To provide guidance to identify data
gaps or additional data requirements for surveys/statistics and suggest
appropriate strategies for improvement.
4. To provide technical guidance to the
central and state-level agencies for the surveys.
5. To review the framework and address
issues raised related to subject, results, methodology, etc. related to all
surveys as brought before the SCoS by MoSPI.
6. To advise on survey methodology
including sampling frame, sampling design, survey instruments, etc. and to
finalize tabulation plan of surveys.
7. To design all data collection, data
production efforts & to ensure that data is collected in MoSPI meets the
standards of good statistics.
What are the new changes brought
about?
1. The Standing Committee on Economic
Statistics (SCES) formed in December 2019 has been renamed as Standing
Committee on Statistics (SCoS).
2. SCoS has been given 'enhanced term of
reference' compared to SCES.
● SCES - Reviews framework for economic
indicators and labour force statistics that includes high-frequency data like
IIP, CPI, Economic census, PLFS.
● SCoS - Reviews all existing framework
examined by SCES + identify data gaps and carry out pilot surveys and studies.
3. The strength of SCoS is half the size
of 28-member panel of SCES.
a. Strength-14 members expandable upto
to 16.
b. Consists of
i.
four non-official members
ii.
nine official members
iii.
a member secretary
Rationale behind forming SCoS:
1) Data quality issues
○ In 2019, the government discarded the
results of two NSSO household surveys conducted in 2017-18 with respect to
employment & consumption expenditure.
2) Absence of data for key surveys
○ After the 2017-18 NSSO was discarded,
a fresh Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) was conducted whose
results will be published only a year later. Key economic indicators such as
GDP, retail inflation,etc., lack recent data to reflect the ground realities.
3) Use of Outdated data for surveys
○ Major surveys conducted post-2011
have used Census 2011 data for the sampling frame. This has led to
overestimation of the rural population proportion and hence become
non-representative.
○ Use of outdated date has
underestimated India’s progress and development and also skews policy-making
decisions.
4) Gap between ground realities and
survey estimates.
5) Usage of standard sampling design
irrespective of assessing its suitability to each survey or study.
6) No regular mechanism to assess the
quality of data and no reporting of margin of error in each study conducted by
NSO.
7) Planning of rounds of surveys are
often delayed leading to inefficiency of the survey conducted.
The new SCoS revamped push for enhancing quality of data combined with sensitization of data users on better interpretation of numbers shall ensure rebuilding of credibility of India's statistics.
|
ABOUT 1. The Ministry
of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) was established as an
Independent Ministry in 1999 by merging of the Department of Statistics and
the Department of Programme Implementation. 2. MoSPI has two
wings, a. Statistics
wing - National Statistical Office (NSO) consists of ·
Central Statistical Office (CSO) ·
Computer center ·
National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). b. Programme
Implementation wing ·
Twenty Point Programme ·
Infrastructure Monitoring and Project Monitoring ·
Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme 3. National
Statistical Commission created through a Resolution of Government of India
(MOSPI). 4. Indian Statistical Institute - An autonomous
Institute declared as an institute of National importance. |
