National Council of Applied Economic Research
New Delhi (Wednesday July 10 2019): Dr Gurucharan Manna Senior Adviser at NCAER and former Director General of CSO and NSSO Government of India has been appointed a member of the National Statistical Commission. Dr Manna has nearly 40 years of specialized experience in sample design estimation procedures for household and establishment surveys and the design of survey questionnaires and related documents for fieldwork and data validation.
Dr Manna is a member of the Ministry of Statistics Standing Committee on Labour Force Statistics the Working Groups of the NSS 75th and 76th Rounds the NSSO’s Standing Committee on Labour Force Statistics and the Labour Bureau’s Expert Group on the Quarterly Employment Survey.
As it so happens Dr Manna was a featured panellist today at the NCAER’s 16th India Policy Forum 2019 for a session on “An Employment Data Strategy of India” presented by Radhicka Kapoor of ICRIER. On this NCAER panel chaired by Mr Pravin Srivastava Secretary MoSPI Dr Manna highlighted the need to retain the practice of administering a detailed questionnaire for the Employment-Unemployment Survey along with the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) on a regular basis. Dr Manna also spoke about the importance of taking concrete steps for improving the quality for population estimates by collecting aggregates of population estimates in the surveys.
Chairing this session on the closing day of NCAER’s three-day India Policy Forum 2019 Mr Pravin Srivastava Secretary MoSPI said “Data is a public good and the Ministry needs the cooperation of all stakeholders as well as the research community to ensure its widespread and efficient use.” He added that the Ministry is taking a number of steps towards revamping the system and creating a division on data quality assurance to help resolve all data-related issues in the next few years. The data is now available free of charge despite the huge cost involved in the process and urged the research community to cooperate in helping MoSPI strengthen the institutional framework of data collection.
NCAER is delighted that one of its Senior Advisers will be part of the National Statistical Commission and will continue to contribute to official statistics on this apex policymaking body.
NCAER is hosting it’s 16th India Policy Forum (IPF) from Monday July 8 through Wednesday July 10 2019 at its new T2 Auditorium at the NCAER India Centre in New Delhi. It is facilitating lively debate and discussion of the key economic challenges facing the nation all based on rigorous research by some of the best economists worldwide working on India. Over 35 presenters and discussants are deliberating on five IPF research papers selected and reviewed by the IPF Editors.
The IPF will conclude this evening with a panel discussion on Validating India’s GDP Growth Estimates moderated by T. N. Ninan of the Business Standard and featuring Arvind Subramanian (Kennedy School) Pronab Sen (former Chief Statistician of India) and Sebastian Morris (IIM-Ahmedabad).