India can set global benchmarks in data, says CEA Nageswaran

Chief economic adviser V Anantha Nageswaran

India will be setting global standards and benchmarks in data, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said at the statistical advisors conference organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on August 14.

Highlighting growing concerns over data quality in developed economies, Nageswaran said India could leverage its rich “statistical legacy” to take the lead. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump dismissed his labour statistics chief, blaming the department for inaccurate jobs reports.

The UK statistical authority recently published a report on structural changes that organisation needs to undertake.

“We have an opportunity to upgrade enough for our data systems to become gold standard for the world,” said former Capacity Building Commission chairman Adil Zainulbhai.

Zainulbhai highlighted the need to leverage technology for this purpose.

“The entire statistical service should be able to get rid of paper by the end of this year, and make all data collection and publication in real-time,” Zainulbhai said.

The CEA stressed the importance of speed, quality, and timeliness in data dissemination. The event was attended by NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam, and Ministry of Electronics and IT Secretary S Krishnan.

“We need to shed the fear that data may reveal something we don’t want revealed,” Krishnan said.

MoSPI Secretary Saurabh Garg emphasised the use of common identifiers and metadata to build a unified repository and ensure interoperability. The ministry had earlier this year announced metadata standards to standardise data collection.

Subrahmanyam also called for making data interoperable and adopting emerging tools like artificial intelligence for evidence-based decision-making. “The data landscape is changing very fast. We have a role in generating sovereign data,” he noted, adding that NITI Aayog is preparing a second version of its National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP) with AI features.