CSO or NSSO, Whom to Blame?

The recent ruckus in India just prior to the Budget for the financial year 2013-14 had a lot to do with the quarterly estimates regarding the GDP of India released by the Central Statistical Office (CSO). 

The CSO faced a lot of criticism as regards to the methodologies it adopted to give the estimates. However, instead of taking the entire onus on its shoulder, the CSO would, generally transfer some of the responsibilities on the other component of the Statistical Wing- the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). 

Instead of going into the blame game, a look into the way data collected in India can give us some idea as regards to the problem.

Generally the responsibility of collecting data is on the NSSO. Organizationally, it has the following subdivisions:

1. Survey Design and Research Division (SDRD)
2. Field Operation Division (FOD)
3. Data Processing Division (DPD)
4. Co-ordination and Publication Division (CPD)

Before a particular survey is conducted, the survey structure and the items on which information is to be collected is designed by the SDRD. Next, throughout India the survey is simultaneously conducted by FOD through its six Zonal Offices (ZO)s i.e. the North, South, East, West, North-East and Central and the various Regional Offices (RO)s and Sub-Regional Offices (SRO)s under them. 

Various socio-economic aspects are surveyed by FOD in different rounds with length of six months or one year. In general, time period for each round of survey is subdivided into sub rounds of three months. The data thus collected come to DPD where before entering the data in the computer, Pre Data Entry Scrutiny is done to check for inconsistency. After the data is entered, the Unit-Level data, which is typical of NSSO is published by the CPD. The CSO uses this data to carry out further analysis and releases important estimates like the one recently released. 

Also the Planning Commission uses this data to formulate its important policies.

This is the schematic structure of the way how the Indian statistical system works. But the scenario behind it involves a lot of hard work and lots of willingness to produce good statistics.

Before a survey is conducted, senior officers go for a pilot survey as regards the responses to the questions. But since they are the “sarkaribabus” or the “mai-baps”, they hardly find any problem in carrying out the pilot survey. 

But the wrath is faced by the statistical investigators, who either form a group of two or have to canvass the main schedule alone. Questions which they have to ask are very realistic and such questions can bring out the true picture of the household. The counter- question that these people often have to hear is – 

“What will the government give if I answer the question?” 

“Who will compensate for the time lost in answering these questions?” 

“Every time, you come and write these down. But what have we got out of it? A BPL card is also not issued to us in the proper time.” 

Answering these counter questions take a lot of time. In addition, the investigators have to explain to the people that the households they are randomly selecting won’t be showered with all the wealth they can think of nor they are going to get all kinds of modern appliances the next day. As a result, it might take a little more time to prepare the schedule after facing all such questions. But these investigators do a commendable job by patiently explaining them the reason of their canvassing and try not to give any false hopes to these people. But then the senior officers might criticize them for taking longer time to canvass the schedule.

However, as we will find every kind of people at every corner of the earth, every investigator might not be that honest. After being continuously confronted, some investigators may cook up information sitting at their homes without even visiting the field - thus giving tailor-made information.

In order to check such situations, often there are field inspections as well as cross-checking of data. For instance, if data is collected on the consumer expenditure - first the listing schedule is done on the basis of the monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) and then on the basis of that, it is divided into three strata - the upper class, the middle class and the lower class. However, when counter-checking is done, people are once again asked about this MPCE. Everyone might not be able to report the MPCE properly, especially in rural poor households. Hence the data often loses its validity. 

Again, the random numbers, using which the households are selected, are also checked, for which any discrepancy might make the schedule being referred back to the field, thus incurring more time and cost.

Hence the finalization of the data takes longer time and hence often fails to capture the current scenario.

Another important problem that remains is the data that comes from North-eastern states like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland where data is collected solely by the states. Hence the discrepancies that remain need a lot of correction and still might not be able to reflect the true picture because the state agencies are not equipped enough for field investigation.

When erroneous data reach the Planning Commission or the CSO, there might be problem like the one currently being faced.

However, one should remember that these data are the only “connect” with rural India because in front of these investigators, the people would talk about the real situation. Hence the need of these surveys remains unquestionable. What the government needs to do is increase awareness among the people. 

The publicity of NSSO should be enriched in both quality & quantity, so that common people are aware about the functionalities & usefulness of NSSO. Only then they can talk about their own conditions and help in their upliftment by providing proper information so that correct policies can be formulated for them and better measures can be taken for the actual “garibi hatao”. 

Only then can India actually perform better as a rising economy.

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Second in the series, the anonymous author comes out with the real grass roots problems in Sample Surveys.