Amid criticism of growing political interference in national statistics, the constitution of a Standing Committee on Statistics (SCES) indicates an acknowledgement on the part of the government that there is a credibility problem with official data, which needs to be addressed. In addition, the draft National Statistical Commission (NSC) Bill 2019, aimed at providing statutory backing to it would ensure an empowered and insightful NSC to correct anomalies in official statistics. In the wake of the increasing controversies over the data quality issues, it seems that ability of the official statistics to represent Indian economy is declining. The case of National Statistical Office’s (NSO’s) decision of scrapping 75th round (July2017- June2018) of consumer expenditure survey (CES) over “data quality” issues is well known among all. The leaked finding from the survey stated that average amount spent by an Indian in a month fell 3.7%; while rural consumer spending declined ...
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