NSC Chairman inaugurates seminar on NSSO 61st round results

New Delhi, Oct 29 (UNI) National Statistics Commission Chairman Dr S D Tendulkar today raised concern over canvassing of long and time-consuming questionnaires such as the one used in consumer expenditure surveys, in view of the Respondent's and Investigator's fatigue.

The need to address the issue of condensation of the detailed schedules was also highlighted on the occasion.

Inaugurating the National Seminar on the results of NSS 61st round survey on Household Consumer Expenditure and Employment and Unemployment, Dr Tendulkar said the divergence between the household aggregate consumer expenditure from the NSS and the directly estimated private final consumption expenditure of the National Accounts Statistics (NAS) was a matter of concern.

He said a group of officers in National Accounts Division and National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO) are working on the issue.

He emphasised on the importance of the selection of suitable reference period for collecting the data on consumer expenditure.

This issue became prominent in academic debates after the 55th round of NSS which for the first time, experimented with a seven days recall period for certain frequently purchased food items of expenditure.

Since the poverty estimates released by Planning Commission also determined the eligibility of poverty related benefits, a firm choice of reference period was felt necessary.

The Chairman had requested the officers of NSSO and experts from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata to undertake more detailed analysis of the data already collected with different reference periods. He expressed hope that these studies will throw some light on the appropriateness of the present methodology followed in the consumer expenditure surveys.

The NSSO has introduced a series of national seminars based on NSS Survey results right from the year 2000-01 when it organised a year long Golden Jubilee Celebration of NSSO. Till date, six seminars have been conducted discussing the results of NSS 55th round to 60th rounds.

The present national seminar is seventh in the series.

The results of the Survey will be discussed in the seminar, whose purpose not only contributes to a better understanding of our economy, but also to policy making national statistical system about the limitations of the data, which is essential for future refinement of data collection methodologies.

During the seminar, three technical sessions and 26 technical papers will be presented. The seminar will begin with the presentation on the results of the NSSO 61st round results. A large number of papers listed for discussion at the three technical sessions are written by Officers of various divisions of NSSO covering not only analysis of survey reports and data, but also data collection and processing issues leading to good documentation for improvement in future surveys.

The recommendations based on the discussions during the technical sessions will be finalised for future guidance in conducting the survey on the subject.

UNI