RSSeNEWS to be determined...

As his tenure as India's first chief statistician moves towards a close, Pronab Sen has called for major change to the country's statistical systems.

Sen, who is also secretary of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, outlined a wide range of reforms that his successor would need to tackle in an interview with the Wall St Journal's Mint magazine.

Topping his list was the need for "better physical targets which can be seen and monitored" for programme implementation.

He said that programme implementation covers two broad categories: central government projects, which are monitored "pretty well", and the 20-point programme, which has 62 schemes divided under 20 heads. The ministry had physical targets for only 19 of these schemes.

He cited the impact of inadequate employment data, saying "if we could have had that before the economic crisis, we would have been a whole lot better off."

Sen said that "whatever data that we have is now available to everybody", but claimed no credit for the greater visibility.

More reform of statistical system was needed, said Sen. He referred to India's new Statistics Act as "only an enabling condition", explaining that "collateral steps" were required "to make the data collection process more efficient".

Sen highlighted the issue of commercial exploitation of official statistics saying the government would have to provide value-added services, just as the private sector already does. That meant developing "the capacity to do analytical work on the data". But "the fact of the matter is that the government is not a commercial organisation", he noted.

Commenting on the challenges of the chief statistician's role, Sen said "the person must be able command a certain degree of respect in terms of his professional credentials". And as the head of the administration, "it does require a person who can assess the calibre of a person and his suitability for performing a particular function".