Vice President Hamid Ansari on Friday said that some of the criticism of India’s official statistics on growth, poverty and unemployment appears valid and is not just undermining the credibility of Indian data globally, but also hurting the analysis of important elements of the economy.
He also warned of the prospect of market volatility due to false data or its wrong interpretation and said this could have a cascading effect on the economy.
Social statistics Stressing that all is not well with India’s social statistics despite the presence of an elaborate machinery for collecting myriad data, a new data policy released in 2009, followed by a national data sharing and accessibility policy in 2012.
“Despite this, the problems with our official statistics appear to persist. Some of the criticism of Indian public statistics, especially when it comes to measurement of crosscutting social issues such as gender disparity, inequality, poverty and growth seems valid,” Mr Ansari said at a seminar on ‘social statistics’ organised by the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) at Patna.
The Vice President’s comments come at a time when India’s GDP growth figures have come under criticism from several quarters due to their apparent divergence from the readings of parameters such as the Index of Industrial Production or corporate performance.
IT data Mr. Ansari also made a reference to French economist Thomas Piketty’s lamentation about the paucity of income tax data and the reluctance of the government to release the caste census results.The vice president pointed out to instances where top officials have also questioned the data.
