Centre to release first draft of core statistics list by July

It’s expected to contain essential economic and social data.

The government will release the first draft of the core statistics list by the first week of July.

The move comes after Parliament gave its approval to the Collection of Statistics Bill (2008), which allows classification of statistical information as core statistics and determining of a method to collect and disseminate the information.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) has been asking the Centre to create a list of core statistics for the past two years. The series, called “core statistics,” will have numbers with national importance and is expected to contain essential economic and social data, besides information on existing price series(WPI, CPI), industrial growth (IIP and core statistics) and national accounts.

In 2009, MOSPI had written to various government departments asking them what statistics were crucial for them. However, the response to this has been erratic with most failing to understand the concept of core statistics.

“We asked them to identify select data for the purpose. Some have identified all data as core, whereas others have stated that they have no core statistics. However, we will take out an initial list in July,” said a senior ministry official.

The National Statistical Commission (NSC), under MOSPI, is likely to hold a meeting on July 1 to decide the contents of the first list. The aim of the core statistics list is to improve statistical standards.

Once the list of core statistics is released, the official said, the ministry would specify standards for both collection and dissemination of the data series. For example, data relating to price change (wholesale price index) and industrial output (Index of Industrial Production) would have to disclose the non-response rate, the percentage of data points that are not reported while computing the index.

At present, when the provisional WPI is released, only a fourth of data points are obtained and the rest are extrapolated from the previous week’s response. Such gaps will have to be reduced given that India is now part of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) Special Data Dissemination System (SDDS), which specifies the standards to be followed for different data series. The core statistics database would adopt these standards, the official added.

IMF’s SDDS requires summary methodology like concepts, definitions, nature of basic data and compilation practices for each data series. India has so far produced this under producer prices in the real sector only, according to an analysis done by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The central bank had suggested posting of summary methodologies on all data categories.