National Statistical Commission gets a new lease of life, govt appoints 2 members

The Rangarajan Commission had suggested creation of NSC in 2005

The National Statistical Commission (NSC), lying defunct for a year, is getting ready for action with the appointment of all five members, while a committee reviews the way it collects data and suggests changes, if needed, to methodology, a senior official has told Moneycontrol.

Constituted in 2006, NSC is a government-funded advisory body on statistical matters. It had been barely functioning as the government didn’t name new independent members. NSC needs five members, including a chairperson, to function. Since 2022-23, only NSC had only three members.

“The National Statistics Commission will now be reformed with a well-defined role with resources,” the official said. This is being done to improve the credibility of India’s statistical system, he added.

Debasis Kundu and A Ganesh Kumar have been named the new members of NSC, which is chaired by Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar. Mukesh Mohania and Asit Kumar Sandhu are the other members.

Steering Committee

The steering committee of the National Statistics Commission, which was formed in 2023, held its first meeting in the last week of April.

“As a part of the reform, NSC’s steering committee has been formed which will review all NSO surveys and suggest changes if needed in the methodologies,” he said.

It is the first time after 2019 that the NSC has all full-time members. In 2019, Amitabh Kant was appointed as the ex-officio member till 2022 after two members and the commission chairman resigned.

Bimal Kumar Roy was the chairman from 2020-22 with Kiran Pandya, Pulak Ghosh, and GC Manna as members. From 2022-23, only Kararndikar, Mohania and Sandhu were in the NSC, with two posts remaining vacant.

The Rangarajan Commission, which suggested the creation of NSC in 2005, wanted an independent body to certify the quality of India’s statistics, which would only be responsible to Parliament.

However, in July 2023, Rao Inderjit Singh, minister of state for statistics and programme implementation, told the Rajya Sabha the government was not looking at creating NSC with statutory powers.