Context: Appointment of Chairperson and Members in the National Statistical Commission
National Statistical Commission:
- It was set up in 2005 on the recommendations of Rangarajan Commission (2000).
- Mandate: It was established to serve as a nodal body for all core statistical activities of the country and also evolve, monitor and enforce statistical priorities and standards and to ensure statistical co-ordination.
Composition:
- It consists of a part-time Chairperson, four part-time Members having specialization and experience in areas of statistics,
- CEO of NITI Aayog as an ex-officio Member.
- The Chief Statistician of India is the Secretary of the Commission. (He is also the Secretary to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation).
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of the Chairman and Members of the National Statistical Commission as follows:
- Dr. Saibal Chattopadhyay, Chairperson
- Prof. Shubhabrata Das, Member
- Shri Satyendra Bahadur Singh, Member
- Dr. Madhavan Mukund, Member
Functions of National Statistical Commission:
- The National Statistical Commission 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 in statistics, laying down national quality standards on core statistics and recommending measures to effectively implement the standards.
- The functions of NSC also include evolving measures for effective co-ordination with State Governments and Union Territory Administrations on statistical activities as well as statistical co-ordination between Ministries, Departments and other agencies of the Central Government and undertaking statistical audit over the statistical activities to ensure quality and integrity of the statistical products.
- The Commission monitors and review the functioning of the statistical system in the light of the laid down policies, standards and methodologies and recommend measures for enhanced performance.