Government to adopt UN principles on official statistics

The union cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval for adoption of the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

"The adoption of these principles will bring professional independence, impartiality, accountability and transparency in methods of collection, compilation and dissemination of official statistics, besides adopting international standards," an official statement said.

"The adoption will also pave way for devising a national policy on official statistics for improving systems, procedures and institutions consistent with these principles," it added.

There are 10 fundamental principles as endorsed by the UN General Assembly.

According to these, the statistical agencies need to present information according to scientific standards on the sources, methods and procedures of the statistics in order to facilitate a correct interpretation of the data.

The statistical agencies are entitled to comment on erroneous interpretation and misuse of statistics.

Also, the data for statistical purposes may be drawn from all types of sources, be they statistical surveys or administrative records.

The UN principles state that bilateral and multilateral cooperation in statistics contributes to the improvement of systems of official statistics in all countries.

The progress of work in implementation of the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics is required to be reported by India to the UN Statistics Division for deliberation in the 48th session of the UN Statistics Commission to be held in 2017.

--IANS

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