India likely to demerge Central Statistical Office, National Sample Survey Office

India is likely to demerge the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) as separate wings, ET has learnt.

Four years after merging the two entities into an overarching National Statistical Office (NSO) to "strengthen" and "streamline" the processes and bring in "more synergy", the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) is reconsidering its decision.

"There are too many functions bunched up in one organisation. There is a thinking to make separate entities again for ease of functioning," said an official.

"The internal restructuring exercise was undertaken with a view to have greater synergies amongst the available statistical manpower and improve data quality not only for survey data but also for administrative statistics," a press note issued by the ministry in 2019 had said.

The purpose of the NSSO is to conduct large-scale sample surveys, whereas the CSO, which is the statistical arm of the ministry, is the nodal agency for development of the country's statistical system, processing and dissemination of data like national accounts, industrial production and retail inflation.

A committee set up by the government in 2000, under the chairmanship of former RBI governor C Rangarajan, had recommended the establishment of NSO.

It had also introduced a director general of coordination, administration and policy, and renaming of the Data Processing Division as the Data Quality Assurance Division. The DQAD is also likely to continue with its earlier nomenclature.

The ministry in 2019 had also proposed a draft National Statistical Commission Bill drawing from the recommendations of a 2011 committee under the chairmanship of NR Madhava Menon to improve the statistical standards.

Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar is the current chairman of NSC.