Amid evidence-driven policy push, India’s data collectors warn MoSPI of ‘acute stagnation’

This is not the first time that the SSS has highlighted the “systemic bottlenecks” that are adversely impacting India’s data collectors. It suffers from vacancies, high attrition, low pay, and difficult working conditions — all of which has a bearing on the quality of data that is collected and subsequently used for policy decisions by the government.

The SSS comprises Junior Statistical Officers (JSO) and Senior Statistical Officers (SSO), and the  service serves as a feeder cadre for the Indian Statistical Service (ISS).

Members of the AIASO met Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation, and MoSPI Secretary Saurabh Garg on December 18, a week after the letter was sent to the ministry. The Statistics Ministry did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

Backbone of statistical system

The junior and senior statistical officers of the SSS form the backbone of India’s statistical system as they work on the ground and collect data from the primary source and check them. JSOs — 90% of whom are recruited directly through exams — are promoted to SSOs, who are then promoted to Assistant Director (AD) in the Junior Time Scale. ISS officers are appointed to this grade after completing their training post an exam. Half the vacancies in the JTS are filled through SSO promotions, with the remaining 50% are filled through direct recruitment.

Most SSS officers, with core competency in statistics, work in MoSPI’s Field Operations Division (FOD), though some are spread out across different ministries and departments of the government. The FOD division collects data through enterprise and household surveys — such as the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, which is used to update the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket — that underpin and inform the government’s policies and programmes.

Heavy workload, poor prospects

In recent years, the workload on these officers has risen significantly due to an increase in the number of surveys for which they are required to collect data. For instance, data is being collected for surveys ranging from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the government’s flagship employment survey, to prices for monthly CPI inflation numbers — India’s most important economic indicator. Additional surveys are set to begin soon. These include the country’s first-ever Household Income Survey starting February 1. MoSPI has also reduced the time lag with which it releases key data points. It uses tablets to conduct surveys to speed up the turnaround time.

The ministry is also overhauling key indicators, with the updated GDP and CPI data series set to be released next month and the revised Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in May. This entails more data collection. The new CPI, for instance, will be compiled using price data for 364 goods and services, up from 299 currently, collected from 1,465 villages and 1,395 urban markets, compared with 1,181 villages and 1,114 urban markets earlier.

But even as the crucial data-points are set for a major upgrade, lawmakers have flagged vacancies at the JSO and SSO level as another worry, with the Standing Committee on Finance noting last year that shortage of manpower in the FOD has been persisting for a “prolonged period of time” and that this “affects the quality of the data”.

“Feedback received from officers of SSS posted in FOD indicates that the workload of surveys had considerably increased and it is becoming difficult to cater to the expectations and achieve a work life balance. The increased workload in FOD is also resulting in fatigue and reduced participation towards other developmental activities e.g. need based training and others,” minutes of an AIASO meeting held last month said.

The lack of career progression for JSOs and SSOs is the real problem facing MoSPI, with the JSO attrition rate as high as 44%, officers told The Indian Express. As such, even filing vacant posts in a timely manner will not help. To be sure, MoSPI is aware of the same, as indicated by its reply noted by the Standing Committee on Finance in a March 2025 report: “large number of newly recruited JSOs leave the job due to other better options”.

As on January 1, there were more than 500 JSO and SSO positions — around 12% of the total sanctioned strength — lying vacant. Around 80% of JSOs and SSOs are attached to the FOD.

The speed with which SSOs are promoted to AD is a concern, with the source quoted above saying there are 600 SSOs who have been at the same level for over 10 years.

“The (SSS) cadre is demotivated,” a retired SSO who spent around 15 years as a JSO before being promoted told The Indian Express.

To make up for the manpower shortage, around 5,500 contractual staff help in data collection. The Indian Express reported Wednesday that MoSPI is planning to nearly double the number of contract staff to almost 10,000.

Impact on data

Questions have repeatedly been raised about the quality of data produced by MoSPI in recent years. Outdated economic indicators such as CPI and GDP — and the methods used to compile them — have borne the brunt of the criticism. Most recently, in December, the International Monetary Fund retained its ‘C’ grade for India’s GDP data.

To be sure, MoSPI has undertaken a major overhaul to ensure more robust data output for key indicators such as GDP and CPI. However, a shortage of manpower in conjunction with the workload can also influence the quality of survey data.

After data is collected from the field by an enumerator, it is submitted to a supervisor. Any inconsistency found by the supervisor is ‘referred back’ to the enumerator, who must either rectify or justify it. While some ‘refer-backs’ are procedural – such as the usage of incorrect codes – and can be easily corrected, some others are due to mistakes made by respondents. While the first type of mistake can be easily corrected, the second requires the enumerator to get the response checked by returning to the field in person or contacting the respondent by phone.

“But there is too much work. And this is particularly problematic for contract staff, who think their contract will be cancelled (if data is found to be wrong),” a serving statistical officer told The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity. “When it comes to FOD, it’s like the motto is ‘task assigned, task completed’ — we get a task and it has to be completed. So, refer-backs keep reducing after each round because enumerators keep adjusting the numbers as per their bias.”