In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had stressed upon the need to have data with "strong credibility". (Photo: Getty Images)

In her February 1 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stressed upon the importance of data, saying "data must have strong credibility" in order to meet challenges of real-time monitoring of our increasingly complex economy. Emphasising on the significance of data, she said the phrase "data is the new oil" has now become a cliché.

Sitharaman also proposed a policy to boost decision-making based on credible data-driven analysis. Under this policy, the government will help the private sector build data centre parks throughout the country. "It will enable our firms to skilfully incorporate data in every step of their value chains," Sitharaman said.

While the finance minister called for strong credible data, documents related to Union Budget 2020-21 were themselves riddled with glaring discrepancies.

Analysing documents on Expenditure Budget that were uploaded on www.indiabudget.gov.in , the official website for Union Budget, IndiaToday.in found discrepancies in the figures of budgetary allocation for many institutes/schemes under the Department of Health and Family Welfare.

Data must have strong credibility...It is now a cliché - 'data is the new oil' - Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech

On the website, details of budgetary allocations are available in two file formats: PDF files and Excel files.

Our analysis of these two file types showed that figures of budgetary allocation for the Department of Health and Family Welfare in the PDF file were different from the ones in the Excel file at several places.

We found at least 14 such discrepancies for this department alone.

Consider these examples:

Allotment for Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi:

Figure in PDF file: Rs 1,318.86 crore;

Figure in Excel file: Rs 1,166.86 crore

Discrepancy of Rs 152 crore

Allotment for RML Hospital, Delhi:

Figure in PDF file: Rs 885.6 crore;

Figure in Excel file: Rs 753.60 crore

Discrepancy of Rs 132 crore

Allotment for All Indian Institute of Medical Science:

Figure in PDF file: Rs 3,489.96 crore;

Figure in Excel file: Rs 3,199.96 crore

Discrepancy of Rs 290 crore

Allotment for PGIMER, Chandigarh:

Figure in PDF file: Rs 1426.53 crore,

Figure in Excel file: Rs 1,551.53 crore

Discrepancy of Rs 125 crore

(The following table presents all 14 discrepancies noticed by IndiaToday.in related to Expenditure Budget for the Department of Health and Family Welfare.)

WHAT FINANCE MINISTRY DID SECRETLY

Following the analysis, IndiaToday.in wrote an email to the Department of Expenditure under the Finance Ministry, explaining the situation and asking three questions to understand the ministry's stand.

The questions were:

Why is there a discrepancy of data on budget allocation for different heads under the Department of Health and Family Welfare as presented in the two files (PDF and Excel) in the Union Budget?

In light of these discrepancies in data, which of the two files (PDF or Excel) should be considered as the official and correct document?

Will the government revise these documents and issue a fresh document on budget allocation for different heads under the Department of Health and Family Welfare? By when will this new document be released for public and presented in Parliament?

This email was sent at 11.12am on Tuesday (February 4) to dprfinance@gamil.com (the email id for media-related queries, as mentioned on the website of the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance).

The response to these questions is still awaited.

Meanwhile, pending a clarification about the data discrepancies that were pointed out, the finance ministry secretly updated its Excel sheet containing budgetary allocation under the Expenditure Budget section in the Union Budget documents uploaded on the official budget website.

The ministry has treated the numbers mentioned in the PDF files as correct and replaced the ones in the Excel file. IndiaToday.in has both -- new and old -- copies of the Excel files.

Till late Tuesday night, the budget website had the old Excel file. But on Wednesday morning when IndiaToday.in rechecked the website, a fresh Excel document had been uploaded, replacing the old one.

Figures in the new Excel file are in sync with the PDF file.

These data mismatches in the Union Budget, the most important financial document prepared by the government, follow close on the heels of the Economic Survey that sourced some of its data from Wikipedia, among other private sources.

Wikipedia, though popular, is not considered to be a credible source of information. It is a website where anyone can edit contents of any article, a fact that compromises with its credibility.

UPDATE: Responding to IndiaToday.in's report, the finance ministry called it a "misleading story".

In its statement posted on Twitter, the ministry said the total appropriation sought for the Department of Health and Family Welfare was "same in both PDF and Excel files" and that "only the inter se allocation was different".

Inter se allocation refers to the figures for individual departments/schemes under the ministry. That was the point the India Today story made. The story did not question the overall allocation, it only pointed out the different figures in inter se allocation.

This confirms what IndiaToday.in reported that there were discrepancies in the Budget documents originally uploaded on the official website for Union Budget.

Besides this, the statement said the Excel sheet that was uploaded on the official budget website (http://indiabudget.gov.in ) was "uploaded as a supporting file". However, it was not mentioned anywhere on the Budget website that Excel sheet was only "supporting" in nature.

The finance ministry said the data in the PDF file was the one that was presented to Parliament as Budget document.

HERE IS THE FULL TEXT OF THE STATEMENT:

"India Today's story titled 'Finance Ministry secretly corrects 14 data discrepancies in Budget 2020 after India Today seeks answers' is a misleading story.

The 'Statement of Budget Estimates' for the Department of Health and Family Welfare, available on the website http://indiabudget.gov.in as PDF file, has been presented to Parliament.

The Excel sheet was uploaded as a supporting file.

The total appropriation sought from Parliament for Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was same in both PDF and Excel files, only the inter se allocation was different."

Statement issued by the Ministry of Finance from its official Twitter handle

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