Why not make an attempt to improve the statistics and make it more reliable.

Why not make an attempt to improve the statistics and make it more reliable?

This refers to the editorial what is the right number? (Business line   dated 7^th Feb 2014).

 The statistics in India is not reliable and needs to be drastically improved was highlighted by none other than the former Governor Dr Subba  Rao while presenting one of his credit policies some years back. The GDP does not reflect the correct figure is a known truth and the change of base year does not make any sense to get the true picture as the assessment based on a new base year taking into account the current market prices only factors the persisting high inflation and does not identify all new products and services that have been added in the economy under the trickle down theory after the reforms have been in vogue since last two decades. The dominance of informal economy is an acknowledged fact and the services sector particularly services in the form of catering, furnishing, car servicing and washing, ironing, event managements, house paintings, etc have gone by leaps and bounds in all major cities and suburban towns without having a formal system of   accounting or payment system. There are innumerable types of economic activities taking place in the economy and to what extent they get  really reflected in our GDP other than by some rough estimates is anybody’s guess. The generation of data on the creation of employment, productive assets, etc leaves much to be desired and it is time the Government takes some serious steps to improve the data collection to get the correct number or nearer to that  involving banks, government agencies, professionals etc with the active use of Information Technology and with proper tie up to trace all types of economic   activities, transactions and have a trail of transactions. The real GDP should be much more than what is estimated even based on the revised estimates changing the base year. The beneficiary would be the Government first and then the economy and its people.Policies taken based on the more or less correct data would definitely get translated into better results.

T.V.Gopalakrishnan