Statistical System being overhauled: Pronab Sen

New Delhi, Oct 26 (UNI) The Indian Statistical System is in for a major overhaul with improvements being carried out in the Quarterly Estimates of GDP, Index of Industrial Production, Consumer Price Index and data on Employment.

This was stated by Dr Pronab Sen, Chief Statistican of India, National Statistical Commission, during an interaction with the media here.

The event was organsied during the release of the publication-- 'National Accounts Statistics--Sources and Methods.' The Publication has been brought out by the Central Statistical Organisation, Government of India.

Dr Sen said the Quarterly Estimates are widely used both by the public sector and private sectors. The later are more interested in the expenditure side of the estimates as this enables them to carry out investments.

Dr Sen said his team will like to improve on the existing data attempting to make it more disaggregated which will be more beneficial for the entities which want to use this data.

He said the other area in which he would like to see improvement relates to employment. He said employment data relating to various sectors takes five years to be published. It was thus important to reduce the time span during which this data is furnished.

"As the Indian economy integrates with he global economy, data on employment assumes greater criticality," Dr Sen said.

Dr Sen said the government was trying to do away with the CPI(UNME), that is Consumer Price Index for Urban Non- Manual Employees, which is released from Shimla.

The normal time period is one month for the Consumer Price Indices as compared to the weekly release of the Wholesale Price Index.

Dr Sen, who is also Secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, said the government was attempting to convert CPI(UNME) to Consumer Price Index for Urban workers. After this is done the government will like to provide a seperate CPI for urban and rural workers.

Apart from this, the government brings out CPI for Industrial Workers.

He said while attempting to review the CPI efforts would be made to widen its scope and bring more goods and services under its ambit.

Dr Sen clarified that unlike in the case of the WPI the Consumer Prices Indices include services as well consumed by the respective sections and class of people.

Dr Sen said the scope of the IIP is also sought to be widened by bringing more industrial items in its fold as also change the base year from 1993-94 to 1999-2000.

The eminent economist said India's National Income Statistics is audited by the International Monetary Fund and is compliant with the multilateral institution.

The presitigous publication describes the sources and methods used in the estimation of macro-economic aggregates, domestic product, consumption expenditure, savings. capital formation, capital stock, accounts of public sector and consolidated accounts of the nation. The publication is organised in five parts, covering 36 chapters.

UNI