-Newsclick.in The government must analyse its existing data collection exercises, rationalise them and improve the inefficient statistical administration. It is good news that the Labour Bureau will revive its establishments-based Quarterly Employment Surveys or QES, using a larger sample. Since the Periodic Labour Force Surveys or PLFS collects data from households, the proposed quarterly survey of jobs will collect data from establishments. But it is advisable to review the multiple existing employment...

Preliminary findings of a survey among 3,994 respondents from 11 states reveal that most vulnerable households and communities, such as SCs, STs, OBCs, PVTGs, slum dwellers, daily wage labourers, farmers, single women headed households, etc. continue to witness depressed incomes during September-October in comparison to their income levels prior to the lockdown. The face-to-face survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign and Center for Equity Studies (instead of telephonic...

-The Hindu Slashing public expenditure amid a recession is a recipe for serious economic disaster The National Statistical Office (NSO) recently announced estimates of economic activity in the second quarter of the current financial year. As most of the first quarter coincided with the lockdown announced by the Central government, it would only have been expected that output would be depressed as production could not have taken place. And this is what...

-Business Standard The findings of the report, published by Business Standard in November 2019, showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. Chief economic advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian has asked the National Statistical Commission (NSC) to make public the 2017-18 consumer spending survey data. “The government had decided to not release the consumer expenditure survey report. But, earlier this year, NSC Chairman Bimal Kumar Roy received a...

-Newsclick.in The statistics are dubious because there is a substantial increase in GDP under the head “discrepancies”, which is synonymous with errors and omissions. It is ironic that government spokespersons should exhibit so much euphoria over the second quarter (July-September) gross domestic product (GDP) estimate, which shows a drop “only” of 7.5% compared with the second quarter 2019-20. The expectation had been that the drop would be larger, about 8 to 9%;...