Govt mulls more frequent job data surveys
Labour Force Survey (PLFS) from quarterly urban unemployment data to monthly, and the quarterly release of the rural employment data, which is released annually at present. Revision of the base year of gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation is also being discussed, officials said.
The ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) is looking at ways to use technology to make the process more efficient and faster as it aims to reduce time lags and improve the frequency of data availability.
“We are trying to reduce the time period between surveys…some can be made quarterly and monthly going ahead which are annual right now,” said Saurabh Garg, secretary, MoSPI at the data user workshop on Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) for 2022-23 Wednesday. As per the survey, consumption inequality has declined over the last decade with the share of top 10% households in consumption declining.
Garg said efforts are on to ensure that all internationally accepted standards are followed.
At the same event, Bibek Debroy, chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister said that India needs a new estimate of poverty going forward as the estimate given by the Tendulkar committee is over a decade old.
“We still do not have an official poverty going beyond (Suresh) Tendulkar and the multidimensional poverty index (MDPI) is not quite a poverty line…Should we now have a new poverty line, to which this data can be applied”.
As per the MDPI, 25 crore people exited poverty between 2015 and 2024.
