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NEW DELHI: Does the cabinet approve surveys undertaken by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)? Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar, who mounted the government’s defence on the jobs numbers on Friday, seemed to suggest that the numbers have to be approved by the Cabinet.

“The government will approve,” he said when asked who would approve the NSSO data. When asked who in the government would approve the data, he said, “I suppose the Cabinet will approve it. I don’t know.”

But former chief statisticians disagreed and said the cabinet isn’t supposed to approve NSSO surveys. “It has never happened. No, never,” Pronab Sen, former chief statistician and ex-chairman of the National Statistical Commission, told TOI. He said there was a well laid out procedure for approving NSSO reports and surveys.

For the jobs survey, a standing committee of experts under retired Kolkata University professor S P Mukherjee was set up. “This committee was set up under one of the most respected statisticians, who oversaw the designing and execution of the survey,” Sen said.

Once the results arrive, they are verified by the committee and a report is prepared and sent to the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI). The chief statistician and the DG, NSSO, sign off on the report which is then sent to the NSC which goes over the report and approves it, Sen said while detailing the procedure.

He also rubbished the argument that the jobs report was not released because the government wanted a quarter-on-quarter comparison. “They started the exercise in April 2017 so they have data for 2018 also,” he said.

“I don’t understand why NITI Aayog has anything to do in this matter?” Sen asked, pointing to the news conference addressed by Rajiv Kumar and CEO NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant .

Kumar said that NITI Aayog uses the data that is generated by MOSPI and traditionally CSO and NSSO were part of the planning ministry. “And moreover, the chief statistician is not in Delhi,” he said justifying his addressing of the press conference.

