Erroneous statistics: CAG-Style data audits to ensure credibility.

NEW DELHI: Error-prone official statistics, such as the Index of Industrial Production, inflation and trade figures, as well as data released by private and non-government agencies will now face CAG-style audits to verify their credibility. India's apex autonomous body for statistics, the National Statistics Commission, which reports directly to Parliament, will initiate such audits soon.

"Data is either good or inadequate. It is our job to reassure the public if they can trust the data put in the public domain or not. We must give the seal of proof at a time there's growing suspicion of government data," the NSC's new chairperson, Pronab Sen, told ETin his first interview after taking charge in late February.

From the Reserve Bank of India to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, everyone has lamented the poor quality of government statistics on whose basis policies are devised. The PM had labeled the government as "a poor user and presenter of information", though it is often referred to as a good collector of information.

"The administrative statistical system has been deteriorating and has now almost collapsed in certain sectors — agriculture, labour, industry and commerce, where deterioration has taken place at the very first stage of primary data collection," Singh had said on National Statistics Day in 2008.

Though 42 ministries and state governments have their own statistical machineries putting out numbers, data generated outside the official system by private sector data providers such as the CMIE or the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) spearheaded by child rights NGO Pratham is also used to formulate policies.

In two of the most glaring recent instances, export numbers for the period between April and October in 2011 were corrected by $8.8 billion. This was followed by a significant correction in the IIP growth for January 2012 from 6.8% to 1.1%.

"The errors in export numbers came as a big shock as the Director-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (under the commerce ministry) has been one of the most reliable official data providers till now," said Sen, adding that India needs a National Statistics Policy and a system of conducting statistical audits to ascertain if field officers are following the manuals.

"Statistics is all about processes and ensuring that they are followed," Sen said, stressing that though the NSC's charter empowers it to carry out audits, it has never been done before. "We'll now pro-actively keep track if ministries are following procedures for data collection and whether they release data on time," he said.

The NSC also intends to initiate similar scrutiny over data generated by non-governmental firms. "Technically, we can also examine if data put out by CMIE, ASER or other bodies in the public domain is good or not and such scrutiny can help them build their own credibility," Sen said.

"On government data, I have the authority to check. But I can also ask private data providers... if they don't co-operate, we can make a bald statement that we asked for their data sources and processes, but didn't get it," said Sen, who is presently the only member at the commission.


Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com