The exit of all independent members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) has once again jolted the shaky statistical credibility of the Narendra Modi government.
With the recent resignation of acting chairman PC Mohanan and member JV Meenakshi, the NSC has no independent members left. Positions of the chairperson and two other members have been vacant for a long time.
Mohanan is a former member of the Indian Statistical Service and Meenakshi a professor at the Delhi School of Economics. NSC's website shows their tenures were up to June 2020. Mohanan has also been officiating as the chairperson of NSC as the chairman's post has been vacant.
The resignations are a major blow to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Arun-Jaitley-led Finance Ministry mired in controversy over the development numbers.
The premier statistical agency now has only two members left: Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who is the ex-officio member, and secretary to NSC Pravin Srivastava, the chief statistician of India.
The resignations are a major blow to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Arun-Jaitley-led Finance Ministry mired in controversy over the development numbers.
Their exits were prompted by the Modi government's dismissive attitude towards the contributions of the NSC, according to media reports.
An immediate issue has been the inexplicable delay in releasing the new employment survey data of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the NSC had approved. The data, called 'periodic labour force survey', has not been made public even though the NSC approved it in last month. The report has assumed significance in view of the government's performance employment generation in the wake of the demonetisation.
Trouble over back series data
Employment generation was a major campaign plank of the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Modi and party president Amit Shah. The opposition Congress party led by Rahul Gandhi will be waiting to pounce on any weakness in official job data.
The NSC had run into trouble with the government earlier after its back series gross domestic product (GDP) data showed an upward revision of economic growth numbers during the years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Manmohan Singh. The government soon withdrew the numbers and came out through the NSSO with a new set of numbers that showed a lower growth during the UPA years when compared to the reign of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance that is in power at the centre.
There were reports last year that the Centre wanted to give more teeth to the NSC by restructuring it as a public corporation to audit and regulate the country's core statistics. However, observers now say such changes may not occur now that the NSC reports have not found favour with the government.
