CENTRAL STATISTICAL ORGANISATION (CSO) 

National Accounts Division (NAD) 

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country registered growth rates of 8.5 per cent, 7.5 per cent and 8.1 per cent during the years 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06, respectively. 

At the broad sectoral level, the growth rates are estimated for ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’ sector at 2.3 per cent (against 0.7 per cent  in 2004-05), ‘mining, manufacturing, electricity and construction’ at 9.0 per cent  (against 8.6 per cent  in 2004-05); and ‘services’ sector at 9.8  per cent (against 9.9 per cent  in 2004-05).

 

The CSO released the New series of national accounts statistics with base year 1999-2000 on January 31, 2006, alongwith the Quick Estimates of National Income and related aggregates for the year 2004-05. 

The Gross Saving Rate is estimated at 29.1 of per cent GDP at market prices in 2004-05, as against the saving rate of 28.9 per cent  in 2003-04, with household, private corporate and public sectors registered saving rates of 22.0 per cent  4.9 per cent  and 2.2 per cent, respectively.

The rate of Gross Capital Formation has also reached a high level of 30.1 per cent  in 2004-05, which is higher than the saving rate for the first time in the last 4 years.

SOCIAL STATISTICAL DIVISION 

Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

One of the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is to coordinate with other Ministries and Departments of the Government of India with regard to policies and programmes for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. As a result of this initiative the Ministry has brought out the first country report viz. ‘Millennium Development Goals – India Country Report 2005’ in February 2006.

 

Gender Statistics

 From 1975 (the International Year of Women), there has been a growing interest in gender statistics.  The need for reliable statistical information on gender issues required for understanding the role of women in the society has been felt with increasing urgency. For some areas of interest, like population, mortality, literacy and workforce, gender specific statistics have been in the public domain for quite some time. For the others, the Ministry has taken major steps in creating a database by compiling gender-disaggregated statistics from various sources and bringing out a publication "Women and Men in India”. The latest issue of this publication pertaining to the year 2004 is also available in the website of the Ministry. The Social Statistics pertaining to gender issues that are included in the latest publication relates to Health, Education, Participation of Woman in the Economic activity and participation of Woman in the decision-making.

 

Environment Statistics

Environment Statistics is a newly emerging area. There is an increasing emphasis on making available relevant data. CSO has brought out seven editions of the publication "Compendium of Environment Statistics". The latest Compendium is available in Ministry’s website. The Fifth National Seminar on  June 23-24, 2005, at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore on ‘Statistical Accounting of Water Resources’ deliberated on the issues of physical accounting of water resources, physical accounting of water quality, water pollution and measurements, economic accounting of water. The Sixth seminar on Natural Resources Accounting held on April 28-29, 2006, dwelt upon Land and Forestry sectors.

 

Modernisation of Statistical System in India

 The Ministry is implementing a World Bank Project, namely,  “India Statistical Strengthening Project” to strengthen the information base for planning and policy formulation.  The project is aimed at improving the reliability, credibility, timeliness and coverage of statistical system of the country. The project has been planned in two tiers. During the year following components of tier-I of the project were under implementation:

Ø                   Study on identifying specific requirements for strengthening of State Statistical Bureaus;

Ø                   Study for creation and maintenance of Business Register;

Ø                   Study for improvement of Service Sector Statistics;

Ø                   Study for assessing survey capabilities of private sector

 

The Ninth meeting scheduled to be held in Delhi on May 11-12 ,2006, will dwell upon the contribution of informal sector to employment and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), links between poverty and informal employment etc. 

 

National Statistical Commission

 The Government of India through a resolution dated  June 1, 2005, has decided to set up a National Statistical Commission.  The Commission will consist of a part-time Chairperson and four part-time Members apart from the Secretary, Planning Commission as an ex-officio Member and the Chief Statistician of India as ex-officio Secretary. The National Statistical Commission will, among others, serve as the nodal and empowered body for all core statistical activities of the country; identify the areas of core statistics which are of national importance; evolve national policies and priorities relating to the statistical system; evolve national strategies for the collection, tabulation and dissemination of core statistics apart from evolving standard statistical concepts, definitions, classifications and methodologies in different areas of statistics; exercise statistical coordination as well as statistical audit to ensure quality and integrity of statistical products. A Search Committee has been constituted to recommend names for the positions of the Chairman and Members of the Commission.

 

 

 Industrial Statistics Division 

Ø                       Fifth Economic Census was launched in all States and Union Territories in 2005, with the objective to provide basic entrepreneurial data on number of enterprises and employment relating to different sectors of the economy for the purpose of planning and development especially for the unorganized sector.  The field work of the Fifth Economic Census has been completed.  The provisional results have been compiled and are being released shortly.

Ø                       The results of Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 2002-03 have been released both on electronic media and in the form of printed reports.  The results of ASI 2003-04, have also been finalised and released on electronic media.  Hard copies of ASI 2003-04 report are under print.

Ø                       An annual publication, viz. “Energy Statistics’, which provides time series data on production and consumption of different energy sources viz. Coal, Crude Petroleum, Natural Gas and Electricity (Hydro and Nuclear) has been released for the year 2003—04, and that of for the year 2004-05, has been finalised and released on the website of the Ministry.  Its hard copies are under print.

All India Index of Industrial Production (IIP), with base year 1993-94, are being released regularly on monthly basis as per Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS) of IMF.  Exercise for revision of base year of all India IIP as well as State level IIPs has also been undertaken.  In this connection, four regional workshops have been organized at Puri, Srinagar, Goa and Hyderabad in which various State governments officials dealing with the subject participated.  These workshops were organised with a view to providing on the sport clarifications to the problems being faced by the State Government in the compilation of State level IIPs and also to ensure uniformity in the methodology for compilation of State level IIPs by various States.

 

National Industrial classification – NIC 2004 has been brought out and also uploaded on the Ministry’s website.  To facilitate the use of NIC 2004 by various users, an Alphabetic Index was also brought out and uploaded on the Ministry’s website.  The National Product Classification 2004 on service sector has also been prepared.  Comments of the concerned Ministries/Departments are being sought.

 

 Price and Cost of Living (PCL) 

Four Consumer Price Indices (CPI), presently compiled and released at national level, measure the fluctuations in retail prices pertaining to certain segments of population.  Thus, these indices do not reflect the true picture of price behavior in the country.  In the absence of a national level CPI covering all segments of population, unlike other countries, inflation in India is measured from Wholesale Price Index series, which is not a desirable situation.  To overcome this limitation, it construct Consumer Price Index series for the entire urban population viz. CPI(U), and Consumer Price Index series for the entire rural population, viz. CPI ®.  The proposed index series would be compiled at all India level as well at State/UT level and would cover all States and Urban Territories.  Preliminary exercise for compilation of CPI(U) has already started.

 

Programmes for Northeast

A number of officers from North East participated in training programmes on Official Statistics for Non-ISS officers conducted/ organized by the Training Division, CSO, MOSPI. A three days training programme on ‘Official Statistics” was conducted by the Training Division for the officers of Government of Tripura   during 7-9 November 2005 at Agarthala, Tripura.

 

Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) 

The MPLAD Scheme performance has improved substantially in the last two last years, due to pro-active policy initiatives, focused monitoring and sustained reviews.  The improvements from April 2004 to March 2006 are delineated below: 

Ø                   Increased utilisation of funds - An amount of Rs. 2743.90 crore was released and an expenditure of Rs. 3291.74 crore has been incurred, during the period. There has been a remarkable improvement in the utilisation of funds during this period. 

Ø                   The percentage utilisation over release for the period is of the order of 120, whereas the percentage utilization over release for the period 2002-03, 2003-04 and for the period 2002-04 was 103.70, 103.25 and 103.46 respectively.  

Ø                   The cumulative percentage utilisation over release has risen to 89.13 as on March 31,.2006, from 82.18 as on March 31,2004, i.e. there has been an increase of 6.95 in the cumulative percentage utilization over release during the period. 

Ø                   Reduction in unspent balance - Excellent financial discipline has been achieved during the period, resulting in substantial decrease in the parking of funds in the districts and consequently, the unspent balance available in the districts. The unspent balance as on March 31, 2006, was Rs.1,933.69 crore, whereas it was a high Rs. 2,404.26 crore as on March 31, 2004, which shows that a reduction of Rs.470.57 crore (about 20 per cent) has been made in the unspent balance. 

 

Faster completion of works: 1,42,401 works have been sanctioned and 1,89,842 works have been completed during the period. There has been a considerable increase in the pace of completion of works during the period.

 

Ø                   The percentage of works completed to sanctioned for the period is of the   order of 133.32 whereas the percentage of works completed to sanctioned for 2002-03, 2003-04 and for 2002-04 are only of the order of 105.60, 83.96 and 94.04 only. 

 

Ø                   The cumulative percentage of works completed to sanctioned has risen to 88.51 as on March31, 2006, from 80.14 as on 31.3.2004. (increase of 8.37)

 

Infrastructure and Project Monitoring 

During April,2005 to February,2006, 75 projects with total cost of Rs.25,371 crore have been completed as compared to 130 projects completed during the year 2004-05 at a cost of Rs.44,629 crore.  During the year, 166 approved projects costing Rs.20 crore and above were taken up for monitoring with an estimated approved cost of Rs.83,116 crore as against 221 projects costing Rs.59,047 crore taken up for monitoring in 2004-05.

 

Due to timely action taken by the Departments concerned and monitoring done by this Ministry, time and cost overrun in projects during the last 1 year shows declining trend, and the overall project cost overrun with respect to the original approved cost has come down from 17.7 per cent in March, 2005 to 17.7 per cent  in December,2005.  This shows a decline in the overall cost overrun in projects by 0.5 per cent.

 

An On-line Computerised Monitoring System (OCMS) is being installed for improving the monitoring quality and reducing the reporting delays. TERI has developed the software and live demonstration of the system is likely sometime during May,2006.  The System, in totality, is likely to be launched in September, 2006.

 

Study of 32 projects with the outsourced consultants to draw lessons on the best practices and develop guidelines for project planning and implementation of future projects was undertaken, which has since been completed.  Reports are being received from the consultants. 

 

Seven Workshops on Project Planning and Management were organised in the North Eastern States of the country.  

 

Twenty Point Programme (TPP)

 

Ø                   The Twenty Point Programme (TPP) is a package, consists of schemes/programmes being implemented by the Central Government, State Governments and Union Territory Administrations having wide bearing on the life of the poor and the under-privileged population of the country.

 

Ø                   TPP covers various social sectors related to Poverty Alleviation, Employment Generation, Rural Energy, Housing, Health and Environment Production etc.  The 20 crucial items of this Programme are monitored by this Ministry on Monthly basis and a Monthly Report is prepared highlighting the achievements made for various programmes. 

 

National Common minimum Programme (NCMP)

The Ministry has the responsibility to look after “Coordination and Policy issues relating to National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) excluding sectoral policies allocated to other Ministries/Deparatments”.  The progress of implementation of NCMP is being reviewed by the Prime Minister’s Office regularly on monthly basis

 

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