Context:

• National Statistical Commission’s (NSC) acting chief PC Mohanan and member JV Meenakshi – he two non-official members have resigned over “disagreements” with the government over the release of a jobs survey.

National Statistical Commission:

• The Government of India ordered setting up National Statistical Commission on 1 June 2005 on the recommendation of Rangarajan commission.

• It is an autonomous body formed in July 2005.

• A key role of the NSC, is to verify whether data being put in the public domain are reliable and adequate.

• The objective of its constitution is to reduce the problems faced by statistical agencies in the country in relation to collection of data.

• Statistical agencies like the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) face numerous problems in collecting data from State and Central government departments, but an autonomous body like the NSC is thought to be more able to coordinate things as a statutory status would lend it teeth.

• Information has been collected and disseminated by successive governments under laid-down schedules, earning Indian data greater global trust than most other emerging market peers, especially China.

Issue:

• The commission is mandated to have seven members. Three posts had been vacant before the resignations.

• With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members — Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

• The latest exits underline the controversies that the centre has faced amid opposition allegations of gaming of data, for example, on joblessness and GDP.

• The resignations could also be related to unease about the recently unveiled back-series data on the economy, which recorded slower growth during the UPA-led government’s rule, and were released by the NITI Aayog bypassing convention and the commission’s views.

Details:

• Reports suggest that the findings of the new Periodic Labour Force Survey, for July 2017-December 2018, are not too flattering, with unemployment registering a five-decade high.

• On the question of job-creation for the youth, credible data are missing.

• The National Sample Survey Organisation’s quinquennial employment surveys were to be conducted in 2016-17. The year was switched to 2017-18 as the new Labour Force Survey was being prepared to replace it.

• Separately, a quarterly survey of select employment-intensive sectors initiated by the Labour Bureau after the 2008 global financial crisis, that provided some clarity on ground realities, was inexplicably discarded. Instead, proxy data from enrolments into social security schemes for formal sector employees are being touted as a sign of job-creation: economists have rightly called them out as inaccurate.

• The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has pegged job losses in 2018 at 11 million based on its regular employment surveys.

• The government’s approach to jobs-related data may be due to its disastrous demonetisation gambit which hurt supply chains and informal jobs in the economy and whose effects have lingered.

• In contrast, the NSSO surveys of 2009-10 that revealed little good news on household incomes and job-creation. The previous government didn’t hesitate from releasing the data, took criticism on its chin, explained it was an exceptional situation (after-effects of the global financial crisis) and commissioned another set of surveys in 2011-12 to correct for the timing.

Conclusion:

Delay in releasing key employment data has undermined the credibility of data officialdom. The government should ensure that the data must not be withheld and India’s statistical integrity must not be invalidated.