Jubilee Post News & Views
On Tuesday, CP Chandrashekhar a Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) CP Chandrashekhar have resigned from a government appointed committee, responsible for reviewing India’s economic data is response to the violent episode that occurred on Sunday in the campus.
The government based committee was set to hold its first meeting headed by former chief statistician Pronab Sen of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, ‘to review the extant framework related to data sources, indicators, concepts or definition and their issues’ of the economic data sets’.
The committee was formed after concerns were raised on the ‘political interference’ into the statistical system. Earlier, government refused to hand over two statistical reports, one on job market and another on consumer spending.
Chandrashekhar who has been a chairman and a member filed his resignation fro the post in an email on Monday at 9pm.
The committee will finalise the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data for November 2019 on Tuesday. During the early 2019 a record high 6.1 per cent of unemployment rate was found during the survey breaking the 45 year record in 2017-18. After that an expenditure survey found consumer survey falling for the first time in over 40 years to which the government called a false report.
“It is unfortunate that political pressure have reduced their autonomy now, and efforts to consolidate a well-designed system are being subverted. In these circumstances, I will not be able to serve on this committee,” said Prof Chandrashekhar.
He even said that he was present at the time of ruckus and called it ‘disturbing’ and ‘unprecedented’. “I regret to inform you that, because of the situation in the JNU where I stay, I will be unable to attention tomorrow’s meeting. Further, I feel that, under current conditions, this committee is unlikely to be able to restore the credibility of the statistical system, which has been undermined in the recent past”.
