India's delayed census affecting survey qualities: official

INDIA has not seen a census after 2011 and a delay in holding the exercise has hurt the quality of statistical surveys, inclusive of economic data, inflation and job estimates, the head of a government panel formed to review the surveys and suggest improvements has said, Reuters reported.

India was supposed to hold its once-in-a-decade census in 2021 but the Covid-19 impacted the process. Technical and logistical challenges caused more setbacks and it is unlikely that the mammoth exercise will start anytime soon.

Recently, the Indian government expanded the term of a committee on committee surveys by a couple of years, renaming it the Standing Committee on Statistics, and asked it to review survey methodologies, sampling design and ways to identify data gaps.

Pronab Sen, the head of the renamed Standing Committee and a former chief statistician of India, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday (19) that the quality of any statistical survey relies on census data.

He said in the absence of latest population census figures that take into account household data on factors such as employment, housing, literacy levels and others, the government statistical surveys were still working on the basis of the 12-year-old findings, the Reuters report added.

According to India's Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, the survey reports were underestimating growth estimates and the effect of welfare measures on alleviation of poverty.

Sen said while no can say that the data is perfect, open criticism by some economists "raised doubts about their intentions" since they could have done it internally while suggesting ways to better the data's quality, the Reuters report added.

He also said the standing committee would consider measures on bettering survey data quality due to lack of census data, which is unlikely to be available for the next few years.