Merging CSO, NSSO shows bad intent

The government’s decision to merge the Central Statistics Organisation (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) to form a new body called the National Statistical Office (NSO) is bad and wrongly intentioned. The government has used an old recommendation in a report of the National Statistical Commission in 2005 to effect the merger. The announcement of the decision on May 23 may have been the last important decision of the Narendra Modi government’s first term. The new NSO is to be headed by the secretary to the statistics ministry. The CSO and the NSSO had different functions. While the CSO prepared and released data on economic growth, industrial production, etc, and compiled indices like consumer price index, the NSSO held surveys on employment, consumption, expenditure, etc. Though the government says the merger is intended for better coordination, synergy and efficiency, the real purpose may be to have total control over the functions of the two bodies through a single government-controlled body. It will essentially mean control over data.

The NSSO was an independent body when it was formed in 1950. Though it became part of the government system later, it maintained the independence of its data collection system. Last year, its survey showed that unemployment had grown under the Modi government, but that report was suppressed. Another report showed that many of the companies in the MCA21 database, used to estimate GDP under the new series, did not exist at all. In January, the acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), PC Mohanan, resigned in protest against the government’s decision not to publish the NSSO employment survey. Though there were clear indicators of the decline of economic growth under the Modi government, an already revised back series was re-revised last year to show that GDP growth under Modi was better than that under the UPA government.

All this has created suspicion that the government wants to control and manipulate data to show its performance in a better light. This will have serious consequences. Good quality data is essential for policy formulation. Those outside the government also need reliable data. The credibility of India’s official data has come to be seriously questioned within the country and outside. Decisions relating to investment can be made only on the basis of sound and credible data. But the government’s control over statistical bodies will have the opposite effect. The need is to restore the credibility, transparency and independence of these bodies. The NSSO will no longer be an independent body and its reports will be made to suit the government’s interests. This may be seen as part of the attacks on the country’s other independent institutions.