National Statistical Commission gets two more members

After a gap of one year, India’s key statistical body, the National Statistical Commission, will now operate at full capacity with the appointment of two members.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has appointed A Ganesh Kumar and Debasis Kundu as members of the commission, which is mandated to strengthen the country’s statistical system and firm up surveys to be undertaken to provide administrative statistics. The appointments will take the panel’s strength to the mandated five, including its chairman.

The National Statistical Commission was set up in 2005 on the recommendations of a panel headed by former RBI governor C Rangarajan, with an objective to provide “strategic direction and leadership to the national statistical system in MoSPI, line ministries and state governments”.

The commission’s purpose is to serve as the country’s nodal body for core statistical activities, suggest standards for statistical surveys and ensure coordination with other departments.

Last year, the commission set up five expert committees to improve survey processes and provide suggestions on issues such as incorporating technology in surveys, sampling methodology, data collection processes and statistical methods.

The commission, chaired by RL Karandikar, also has Asit Kumar Sadhu and Mukesh Mohania as members since December 2022. Ganesh Kumar is currently a professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, and has worked with the MoSPI in the past.He was also a member of the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics, which advises the ministry on revising the base year of national accounts.

Kumar was also a member of the working group for the ministry’s 77th round of the National Sample Survey.

Kundu is a professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

The latest appointments come in the backdrop of demands for reforming the country’s statistics system.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister’s Office called for a meeting to discuss the overhauling of the country’s statistics system. One of the suggestions at the meeting was to empower the National Statistical Commission further.