Need data driven strategy for 8% growth rates: MoSPI Secretary

According to the official, data from sources like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee and goods and Services Tax can be leveraged more to achieve desired results

India needs to leverage data and make data-driven decisions if it wants to achieve a higher rate of growth, Saurabh Garg, secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said at the Second Round of Sensitization Cum Review Meeting of Statistical Advisers in Central Ministries/Departments on December 23.

“If you want to have growth rates of 8 percent or more, you can't be making decisions using current strategy; it has to be more data-driven,” Garg noted, highlighting the need to use administrative data for decision-making.

Indian economy achieved an 8 percent growth in FY24, but growth dipped to 6 percent in the first half of the year.

Garg further noted that data from sources like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee and goods and Services Tax can be leveraged more to achieve desired results.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported that the ministry was looking to leverage GST data for calculation of national account statistics.

Garg also called for a greater coordination between ministries for data sources.

“We need e-commerce data, which DPIIT is nodal ministry, and how it can be useful. We don't want to scrape websites, but get it from institutions getting them,” he pointed out.

The MoSPI secretary also talked about the need to align the data standards to make it more interlinked.

“Metadata standards are there and make sure that they are implemented in all ministries. We are running a pilot with five ministries,” Garg noted.

The metadata standards are meant to ensure that data can be used across ministries and that reporting standards are similar.