The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) is done with data collection for the 61st round of its survey on consumer expenditure, employment and unemployment, and has begun the compilation process. According to a release, NSSO covered a total of 12,784 sample villages/blocks this time, selected from different parts of the country.

The government refuted on Wednesday the claims that there is a 40% divergence between the poverty estimates of the National Accounts Statistics (NAS) and those of NSSO. Statistics and programme implementation minister, Oscar Fernandes told the Parliament that the question of divergence in poverty estimates does not arise as poverty estimates are not prepared using the NAS. The poverty estimates are derived by the Planning Commission using the data on household consumer expenditure, he added.

The minister also acknowledged the fact that the change in the methodology in the 55th NSS round gave rise to problems of comparability with earlier rounds.