Economy | Data

Lies, damn lies and statistics?

P Raghavan
Posted: Thursday, Jan 01, 2009 at 0129 hrs IST
Updated: Thursday, Jan 01, 2009 at 0129 hrs IST

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: The transparency and accuracy of the official data brought out by the government of India and the states have always being questioned, especially in recent years as the demand for information soars up with the economy moving even faster to the free market mode. While expert after expert has pointed to the poor quality of the data supplied across different sectors the official view, at least from the ministry of statistics, has been that India has one of the best statistical systems in the world. How does one explain this strange dichotomy? An answer to this question can be found from the assessments of India’s statistical systems made by independent organisations.

The Statistical Capacity Indicator (SCI) provided by the World Bank that provides information on the statistical systems in 140 developing countries is a good yardstick for making such comparisons. The SCI is a composite score of the three major dimensions of the quality of data, namely statistical practice, data collection and indicator availability and rates each country on a scale of 0-100.

The Statistical Capacity Indicator (SCI) gave India a composite score of 86 in 2008 which is much higher than the 65 score of all the developing countries. And India’s score is certainly much higher than that of most other important developing countries like Russia (78), Brazil (77), South Africa (77), Turkey (77), Mexico (76) and China (59).

But the achievements in the three different dimensions of statistical capacity vary. The highest score of 90 is for statistical practice or ability to adhere to internationally recommended standards and methods. India also scores a respectable 87 in indicator availability, which is much higher than the all country average of 77. India’s worst record is in the area of data collection or the frequency of surveys, censuses and completeness of registrations where the score is 80, though it is still considerably better than the overall average of 62. All these indicate that the official view that India has one of the best statistical systems is not completely out of place.

However, this is only one side of the story. Assessments made by other organisations point out that despite the good capabilities, the actual quality of the data is far below expectations. A survey of the data users done by the World Bank a few years ago pointed to innumerable drawbacks. These include insensitivity to the needs of the changing economy,...

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