The National Statistical Commission will submit its report to the Prime Minister in the first week of September. While the term of the commission expired last week, it has got an extension till September to submit its report.
The NSC, which submitted its interim report on agricultural statistics, industry and corporate sector statistics and financial and external sector statistics in February 2001, will now be submitting its final report in September, as against the original scheduled date of July 2001.
The commission, was set up in January 2000 with the mandate to critically examine the deficiencies of the present statistical system in terms of timeliness, reliability and adequacy and to recommend measures to correct the deficiencies.
The final report will include its recommendations on national account statistics, services and infrastructure statistics, socio-economic statistics and on statistical systems, information and communication technology needs, human resource development, legislation and audit.
The terms of reference of the 12-member commission also included recommending a permanent and effective coordinating mechanism for ensuring integrated development of the decentralised statistical system and reviewing the existing legislation for collection of statistical information.
It was also asked to review the existing organisational structure of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation and of other statistical units of the government and to make recommendations on their staffing and training requirements to enable them to cope with the increase and development of statistical services.
The need for instituting a statistical audit of the range of services provided by the government and local bodies was also to be examined by the NSC, chaired by Dr C Rangarajan.
