The government has appointed Saibal Chattopadhyay as chairperson of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), the apex body overseeing India's core statistical activities. According to the latest press release from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Chattopadhyay, who is a former director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata, succeeds Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar, whose three-year term as NSC chairperson ended earlier this year. The appointments were approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), as stated by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
Alongside Chattopadhyay's appointment, the government named Shubhabrata Das, Satyendra Bahadur Singh and Madhavan Mukund as members of the apex body. As reported in the latest press release, Das is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Singh is a retired Indian Statistical Service (ISS) officer from the 1987 batch with extensive experience spanning more than three decades in government statistics, while Mukund is director of the Chennai Mathematical Institute. Chattopadhyay holds a PhD and an MS in Statistics from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, US, and an MSc in Statistics from the University of Calcutta, with specialization in sequential methods, survey sampling, and advanced marketing research.
According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the National Statistical Commission was established in 2005 to serve as a nodal body for all core statistical activities of the country. The commission comprises a part-time chairperson, four part-time members having specialization and experience in statistics, the CEO of NITI Aayog as an ex-officio member, and the secretary of MoSPI, who serves as its secretary. As reported in the latest press release, the NSC is responsible for evolving national policies and priorities relating to the statistical system, measures for improving public trust in official statistics, and standard statistical concepts, definitions, classifications, methodologies in different areas of statistics.
The NSC undertakes statistical audits to ensure the quality and integrity of official statistical products, as reported in the latest press release. The commission monitors and reviews the functioning of the statistical system in the light of laid-down policies, standards and methodologies, and recommends measures to enhance its performance. The ministry stated that the commission was established to evolve, monitor and enforce statistical priorities and standards, and to ensure statistical coordination across all statistical activities in the country. The commission's functions also include evolving measures for effective coordination with state governments and union territory administrations on statistical activities, as well as statistical coordination between ministries, departments and other central government agencies.
