Making do with an outmoded data base

By S. Swaminathan

The Planning Commission is rightly exasperated by the Finance Ministry's inflated estimates of revenue receipts. The problem goes far beyond the bureaucrats' chronic tendency to wish for tax buoyancy. As the literature on fiscal policy puts it, the Indian budgetary system suffers from ``poor fiscal marksmanship" with revised estimates often shooting beyond budget expectations, whether of revenue expenditure or of fiscal deficit. Nor is the Planning Commission, after five decades of comprehensive economic stewardship, even passably knowledgeable about the real magnitude of poverty or unemployment in the country.

Recently, when the Supreme Court directed 13 State governments to come up with data on ``below the poverty line" within three weeks, it was as much a revelation of how inexcusably indifferent the governments in these States are to the task of implementing several anti-poverty schemes as it was an expose of the broad mass of statistical ignorance in the country about the living conditions of the people.

An overarching realm of guesstimates

While it is true that mountainous outputs of statistical data are generated in the country by such agencies as the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) the National Sample Survey (NSS), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Directorate-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), besides the Departments of Statistics at the level of the State governments, massive problems of reliability adequacy and timeliness continue to vitiate the system. How often has the legitimate point been made that the gross domestic product (GDP) tends to be grossly underestimated with the reporting (accounting) system leaving large segments of the ``informal economy" outside its coverage?

In the system of agricultural crop estimates, how chronic is the tendency for underestimation, given the fact that the village revenue officer continues to be the anchor for the system with all his lack of training, low morale and immunity from accountability? If the Union Ministry of Agriculture estimates foodgrains output at, say, 210 million tonnes, the chances are that the actual output would be several million tonnes more - all of which is neatly attributed to ``self-consumption" by the farming community! Who knows how much of the annual food subsidy is consumed by rodents and how much represents ``human misappropriation."

Industrial data are no less prone to subjective guesstimates and it is no secret that manufacturers make false declarations regarding output for the purpose of evading excise duties. A vast ``grey area" here is the small industry sector where production data, exports and employment are all shaped by ``creative accounting"!

Modernising the statistical system

The task has remained practically unmet. This is not to say that statistical methodologies have not been updated or that computerisation and the new devices of IT have not been brought into the art. The point is that the traditional mindset which treats statistical data as by-product of administration rather than as its critical decision-making tool continues to hold sway. It is almost analogous to the traditional store-keeping function in manufacturing - a far cry from the modern function of inventory control. The consequence is that across a wide spectrum of public administration, the statistical function has been devalued, routinised and robbed of its dynamic instrumental potential.

Economic reforms, liberalisation and global competition should have spotlighted the deficiencies of the statistical system and driven a process of modernisation and professionalisation. It is only now that a comprehensive modern perspective on the Indian statistical system has been put together by the National Statistical Commission, under the chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan.

It is a vast canvas presented by the Commission transcending the traditional boundaries of economic statistics. Issues pertaining to the data base of the infrastructure, the social sectors and the imperative of linking a professionally-managed, independent decentralised statistical machinery with effective governance, at various levels have been dealt with by the Commission.

The core of the recommendation's of the Rangarajan Commission relates to an architectural reform of the entire statistical system. The Commission recommends the creation of a permanent and statutory apex body - The National Commission on Statistics - independent of the government and responsible to Parliament in respect of policy-making, co-ordination and certification of quality of ``core statistics".

The Commission would not be a captive of the Government of the day but would function as the professional authority, streamlining, coordinating, standardising and certifying the credibility of the data system in all its dimensions - from the village up to the Union Government. An ambitious vision which can be passed over only if governance is to continue as ``the eternal pursuit of the unknown by rulers who believe that information is a barrier to discretionary decision-making"!

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