The government of India has constituted the Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS)-a new internal oversight mechanism for official data. It has replaced Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES) set up in late 2019.
About Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS)
- The SCoS has a broader mandate to review the framework and results of all surveys conducted under the aegis of the National Statistical Office (NSO).
- Pronab Sen, India’s first chief statistician and the former chairman of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), has been named the chair of the new committee.
- The SCoS — with “enhanced terms of reference” vis-à-vis the SCES, to ensure more coverage — has 10 official members, and four non-official members who are eminent academics.
- The panel can have up to 16 members, as per the order issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
- Apart from addressing issues raised from time to time on the subject, results and methodology for all surveys, the SCoS’ terms of reference include the identification of data gaps that need to be filled by official statistics, along with an appropriate strategy to plug those gaps.
- It has also been mandated to explore the use of administrative statistics to improve data outcomes.
- While the panel will help finalise survey results, the NSC will have the ultimate authority to approve the publication of those results.
- The government had reconstituted the NSC December 2022, appointing Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar, Professor Emeritus at the Chennai Mathematical Institute, as its part-time chairperson.
