Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday that the government needs to "bring credibility to data" after recent controversies over revisions and delays of crucial numbers.
"No doubt we need to bring credibility back on the data," Sitharaman said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Sitharaman's comments are the first tacit admission by a top government official that there are deficiencies in the way it collects data.
Economists and investors have said they have little or no confidence in India’s official economic data. Last December, the government held back the release of jobs data but an official report leaked to the Business Standard newspaper showed the unemployment rate had touched its highest level in 45 years.
But Sitharaman said there was no need to cast aspersions on every data that the government releases. She said the government is trying to change the way it collects and releases data.
Reuters reported earlier this year that many economists said they were stunned when the government upwardly revised GDP growth for 2016/17 to 8.2 percent from 6.7 percent, although the demonetisation of high value notes hit businesses and jobs in that financial year.
First Published: Dec 7, 2019 11:58 AM IST
