As a recent paper by Pramit Bhattacharya shows, India’s statistical system has been on a decline, especially in the last decade. Since 2015, there have been controversies related to data on Gross Domestic Product, stalled investment projects, unemployment data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), data on sanitation, consumer expenditure survey, etc.
https://thewire.in/government/civil-registration-system-crs-data-census-2021-covid-death-birth
A most contentious situation is where the Union government remains adamant on a low number of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, touting its success in managing the pandemic, despite every available piece of evidence and multiple studies showing the exact opposite.
Against this background, the statistical machinery of the Union government has failed so far to release the “Report on vital statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System” – CRS data.
by Mihir Mahajan
30/06/2023