No Regrets, Says Ex-NSC Chairman on Resigning Over NSSO Report

Mohanan said that the NSSO report on unemployment rate in India had been approved by the NSC on 5 December 2018.

Former NSC Head PC Mohanan.

(Photo courtesy: Facebook/@Prasenjit Rudrapal)

Have no regrets about resigning from post of National Statistical Commission (NSC) Chairman, PC Mohanan, who had announced his resignation on 28 January over the delay in the release of an unemployment rate report, told Reuters in an interview.

The NSSO report, which claimed that unemployment in India under the Modi government had reached 6.1 percent – highest in 45 years, had reportedly been approved by the NSC under Mohnan’s guidance on 5 December 2018. However, the report was not released and members of the NITI Aayog were later quoted saying that the report was but a mere draft, and did not include the quarterly data required to publish a "comparable" jobs report.

Responding to the NITI Ayog’s defence, Mohanan dismissed the claims, saying that the quarterly data had nothing to do with the NSC report, Reuters reported.

He also told Reuters that although the NSC is supposed to have the final call on statistics before they are published, it has often found itself side-lined by the BJP-led government in the past few months.

Speaking about the NSSO report, Mohanan told the news agency that after the report hadn’t been published for a few days after being approved on 5 December, he reached out to several top officials – and even flew to Delhi to meet with chief statistician, Pravin Srivastava in late January, in order to seek answers.

However, he claimed, they did not answer his satisfactorily. When it became evident that the report was not going to published then, Mohanan along with another member of the NSC, J Meenakshi, quit the organization.

Mohanan, who joined the NSA in 2017, told Reuters that he felt like it was important that he “stood up for integrity of the organization”. In terms of the NSSO report that was delayed in being published, he said:

“Data should be released as per the calendar, whether it is to your liking or not liking. Otherwise, where is credibility in the system?”

Following his resignation, Mohanan told Reuters that he was looking forward to settling into a quiet retirement in the village he grew up, in Kerala.

(With inputs from Reuters)