The Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has dismantled the Standing Committee on Statistics, The Hindu reported on Monday.
The members of the committee have alleged that it was disbanded after they questioned the delay in conducting the Census. However, an email from the ministry said the decision was taken as the committee’s work overlapped with the Steering Committee for National Sample Surveys.
The 14-member Standing Committee, headed by economist and former Chief Statistician of India Pronab Sen, was set up in 2019 and was tasked with examining economic indicators.
It was renamed in July 2023 and its mandate was broadened to advise the ministry on all surveys.
The Steering Committee for National Sample Surveys was formed in June to review the “framework and to address the issues raised from time to time on the subject results/methodology questionnaire, etc of all National Sample Surveys” conducted by the Centre.
Sen told The Hindu that no reason was given to the members of the Standing Committee on Statistics for its disbandment.
“I have no idea of what happened,” he said, adding that the committee had held more than half a dozen meetings last year. “The lack of holding a Census figured in all those discussions.”
The decennial Census exercise was to be completed in 2021. The last Census was held in 2011.
In 2020, India was set to begin the first phase of the exercise – in which housing data is collected – but the coronavirus pandemic hit. The exercise was initially delayed due to the pandemic. However, it is yet to be notified.
Experts have said that the delay in conducting the Census is hampering the disbursal of government schemes and programmes. It has also resulted in unreliable estimates from other surveys on consumption, health and employment that depend on Census data to determine policy and welfare measures.
“The Census is an important tool to decide the policies of the country scientifically,” an unidentified member of the committee told The Hindu. “We had questioned the delay in conducting it and probably that was the reason why the Standing Committee on Statistics was disbanded.”
In an email, Geeta Singh Rathore, the director-general of the ministry’s National Sample Survey Office, said that the roles and responsibilities of the Steering Committee “are overlapping with that of Standing Committee on Statistics as outlined in the respective Terms of Reference”.
She also expressed her “profound gratitude” for the contributions made by the committee. “The SCoS [Standing Committee on Statistics] has played a major role in advancing the framework and methodology of surveys, reviewing survey results, advising on sampling designs and survey instruments, and providing technical guidance to both Central and State-level agencies as per requirement,” she wrote.
In response, Sen said that the Standing Committee on Statistics was formed to aid the ministry on methodologies of collecting and tabulating data, adding that the Centre had now gone against its mandate.
In a post on X, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the committee was disbanded “simply for repeatedly asking the Government why the decennial Census last due in 2021 has still not been conducted thereby, among other things, denying at least 10 crore Indians of ration benefits under National Food Security Act, 2013/ PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana”.
Even before the pandemic and the subsequent delay, the 2021 Census was bound to be a controversial exercise because the government plans to update the National Population Register alongside. The register is the first step to creating an all-India National Register of Citizens which would identify undocumented migrants residing in India.
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