-The Times of India MUMBAI: Mumbaikars can now drink water straight from the tap, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC’s) hydraulic engineer Ashok Tawadia said. According to BMC, an average 0.7% of water SAMples collected daily across Mumbai between April 2018 and March 2019 tested positive for Coliform bacteria, a group of microorganisms present in water bodies that indicate water may not be fit for drinking. This is far better than the WHO...

-Business Today A release from the government said that media has misinterpreted the out-of-survey enterprises to be enterprises that do not exist in the economy report. Refuting charges that the GDP numbers put out by the government may be over-estimated due to 'shell' companies which are untraceable, the government has said that the extent of overestimation of GDP in all likelihood is marginal. Clarifying the problem pointed out by the Technical Report of...

-The Hindu Business Line Fears over shell companies inflating the GDP are overdone, but the CSO needs to be more transparent in its methods Just as the dust was settling on the controversy over the Centre deferring the release of NSSO’s labour force survey which showed unemployment numbers in an unflattering light, a new one has broken out on the veracity of the MCA-21 database used in GDP calculations. The economic commentariat...

-PTI New Delhi: The statistics ministry Wednesday said an official committee will examine the NSS technical report on services sector enterprises, which has raised questions over the GDP data. The technical report of the National SAMple Survey Office (NSSO) has generated controversy following its observation that as much as 36 per cent units forming part of MCA-21 database, used in computing GDP, could not be either identifiable or traceable in the field. The...

-The Hindu Shell companies in MCA-21 submitting balance sheets regularly very much part of measurement, says former chief statistician The deficiencies found in the MCA-21 database of the corporate sector, where more than a third of the SAMple companies were either untraceable, out of coverage, or closed, will not have a major impact on the calculation of GDP and GVA, according to prominent statisticians closely associated with the subject. A recent report by...