Designing a portal for IIP data is easy: T C A Anant

Interview with Chief Statistician

A web portal for the purpose of capturing data for the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is being mulled. The move is likely to help Mospi detect inconsistencies in data and avoid recurrence of goof-ups as had happened in case of IIP data for January. Chief statistician T C A Anant tells Dilasha Seth that the portal is feasible, though its cost structure and other technicalities are being examined. Edited excerpts:

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Mospi) was looking for a web portal for the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). What is the status of that?
We would be very keen to go for a web portal. But that depends on whether all agencies will be able to provide data on the portal or not. This issue is examined by a working group. The general feeling is that it is feasible. Designing the portal is easy.

How will the proposed portal work ?
The IIP portal will simply aim at eliminating middlemen in the data entry process. Right now, data is reported from the field, goes to the agency concerned, which compiles it and sends it to us. If there is a portal, it will directly go from the field to the processing unit, which is Mospi. All agencies supply data to us in a certain format. They collect from field and convert it into ratios and supply it in a certain format.

What is the timeline for the portal?
At the moment, it is a suggestion, as its feasibility has to be examined; the cost part and if all reporting entities would be in a position to report through a portal.

What about a portal for the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI)? Is it functional now?
Portal for ASI is not ready. What we are doing now is a cumbersome process—the electronic data is captured and sent through email. We hope to have the portal ready by the end of 2012.

ASI data are released with a two-year lag. Would this also lead to speeding up of the ASI-data release?
This will eventually result in speeding up of the ASI-data release. Basic limitation on timing is based on the structure of the data. ASI is not available to us until the companies’ accounts are finalised. For example, if relevant year is one which finished this March 31, the data isn’t made available to us until sometime in October. Our collection process starts from September 30, but we don’t actually complete it by end of May or June. As everyone doesn’t complete data, and even if they did, we are not in a position to physically capture it instantaneously on September 30 as it is.

Why is that so?
A lot of people are not in a position to supply the type of information required in ASI without some assistance. The larger ones typically supply us fairly quickly. So, in ASI data also, there is a flow dimension to capture it. Some of it gets captured quickly which we may get within a month or two after September 30. But a good chunk of it comes over time. There is also a sample sector that has to be actually visited and captured, which takes more time as an investigator actually has to visit it. What the electronic version is doing is feeding data entry component. Earlier, data used to be collected, validated, and then the results would be prepared. We can’t do a great deal on the collection part. It is driven by a number of factors, including the inherent internal element of when the companies finalise accounts.

Will the entry part get speeded up, with the web portal leading to a quicker processing of data?
Yes, if the entry part gets speeded up, the validation also gets speeded up. Once we have a portal, electronic data entry and validation checks can be made inbuilt. Here some validation exercises can be automated. So, as the person enters the inconsistencies, these are flagged at the entry stage itself.

Would we be able to get the ASI numbers with a one-year lag?
Despite all this, it’s unlikely that we would be able to speed up ASI more than this. Ideal is, if ASI is released a year after accounts are closed. Optimal will be if we can release it in October 2013, for 2011-12, instead of January 2014.