Industries, trade and commercial establishments, even individuals and households, be careful! The government might put you behind bars if you provide false information about your business or any other data that the government might ask you to submit.
The standing committee on finance reviewing the Collection of Statistics Bill, 2007 has suggested that the Bill should have provisions for simple imprisonment as per the Indian Penal Code in case any one wilfully provided false information to the government or any public sector authority or if an employee working under the Act failed to keep inviolate the secrecy of the information.
The Parliamentary panel said that the existing provision of mere monetary penalty of Rs 1,000 for individuals and Rs 5,000 for companies was too meagre to deter anyone from making false statements.
Citing the inadequacy of the penal provisions under the Bill, the Steel ministry said that fine seemed grossly inadequate as a deterrent and the ministry believed that there was large scale under-reporting by the steel producers for various reasons including tax evasion. Even the smallest of steel producers would prefer to pay the paltry fine rather than impart with data. Therefore, the provision of imprisonment should be built in in the new Bill on the lines of IPC which imprisons the person with false information.
The committee found merit in the steel ministry?s suggestion and asked the ministry of statistics and programme implementation to suitably amend the Bill and make it more stringent with the provision of imprisonment to punish those who gave incorrect data.
Under the new Bill, the scope of data collection has been enhanced from industrial/commercial establishments to cover individuals and households. The local governance bodies like Panchayats and municipalities would be empowered to collect statistics.