NSC members resign citing poor treatment by government
Mohanan along with Meenakshi resigned on Monday, leaving behind no external members in the body.
Two external members, PC Mohanan, acting chairman, and JV Meenakshi, of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) have resigned over disagreement with the government on certain issues. The commission has now left with just two members, chief statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who is an ex-officio member.
Mohanan along with Meenakshi resigned on Monday, leaving behind no external members in the body. The tenure of Mohanan and Meenakshi was to end in June 2020. They joined as members in June 2017.
The NSC, under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), is to have seven members, as per its website. Already, three posts were vacant.
Mohanan said the agency was “not being taken seriously” and the commission was not consulted before releasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) back series data last year.
In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of the UPA years.
Another reason for Mohanan's resignation was the delay in publication of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)’s employment survey, which was approved by the commission in December.
Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, sources in MOSPI told CNBC-TV18 that NSC's work on GDP back series was just an academic exercise and the data was published by Central Statistics Office (CSO).
On the delay in publication of employment survey, the sources said it is still being processed and that the government is looking to release both annual and quarterly jobs data. MOSPI is coordinating with World Bank on the jobs data, a source said, requesting anonymity.
The government is in the process of filling up vacancies at NSC and the selection process for new members is on, added the sources.
First Published: Jan 29, 2019 10:42 PM IST
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