Data Vacuum - Covid-19 Impact

What is the issue?

• Covid-19 led condition is causing the postponing of Census operations and undertaking of key official primary surveys.
• The resultant data vacuum could hamper efficient policy-making at a time when it is most needed.

What happened with the 2009-10 survey?

• In 2009-10, the National Sample Survey Office (now National Statistical Office or NSO) conducted a large sample survey of Household Consumer Expenditure (HCE).
• This survey, usually carried out once in 5 years, was repeated in 2011-12.
• The reason was that 2009-10 saw India suffer both a severe drought and the after-effects of the global financial crisis.
• 2011-12 was a “normal” year like 1999-2000 and 2004-05, “free” from any major economic downturn.

What is significant with 2011-12?

• 2011-12 yielded the HCE survey data used for estimating poverty lines and ratios.
• Significantly, besides this, it also produced a surplus of information from other sources such as -
  1. the 2011 Census
  2. the NSSO’s Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS)
  3. the Rural Development Ministry’s Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC)
• Policymakers and researchers were thus spoilt for choice with regard to official data availability in that period.

What is the present scenario?

• In contrast to the above, at present times, there is a virtual data vacuum.
• The NSO did carry out a HCE survey for 2017-18.
• But the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation did not release its results citing “data quality issues”.
• Instead, it proposed conducting back-to-back HCE surveys in 2020-21 and 2021-22 “after incorporating all data quality refinements”.
• The 2020-21 survey is supposed to start from July 2020.
• Apparently, this looks unlikely given the novel coronavirus-induced situation.
• It is a massive exercise due to the size of the sample (101,651 households in 2011-12) and also the questionnaire.
• The questionnaire, notably, covers the consumption of around 300 food and non-food items.
• The field investigators go to remote areas and spend roughly 2 hours with each household, doing which is risky at COVID-19 times.

What else is uncertain?

• Census - The Census collects individual-level demographic as well as socio-cultural, occupational, education and migration-related information.
• This is scheduled to be conducted in February-March 2021.
• Houselisting - Prior to the Census, the first Houselisting & Housing phase was to take place during April-September 2020.
• This looks at the amenities and assets possessed by households along with the condition of homes (construction material, number of rooms, etc).
• The houselisting operation is crucial for carving out specific areas that are allotted to each of the 30 lakh-odd field functionaries tasked with collection of Census information.
• There were uncertainties over the launch of this phase even before the Covid-19 lockdown.
• This was especially because it was clubbed with the updation of the National Population Register opposed by many non-BJP ruled states.
• With Covid-19, there is a remote chance of the Houselisting & Housing phase taking off immediately.
• SECC - The same goes for the SECC, whose individual/household-level data, unlike that of the regular Census, is not confidential.
• The Narendra Modi government has used the SECC-2011 database for identifying beneficiaries under -
  1. Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana (rural housing)
  2. Ujjwala (LPG connection)
  3. Saubhagya (household electrification)
  4. Ayushman Bharat (health insurance) and other welfare schemes
• But the SECC-21, too, cannot be undertaken without the demarcation of enumeration blocks as part of the Census Houselisting operation.

What are the challenges now?

• The few relatively recent sources of primary survey data available at present include -

1. the Agriculture Census 2015-16
2. the NABARD All-India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17
3. the NSO’s 2017-18 reports on social consumption (health and education) and access to drinking water and sanitation

• But these do not answer some basic questions such as:
  1. Has poverty in India fallen and by how much since 2011-12?
  2. Is consumption of protein-rich foods and vegetables growing at the same rate as in the previous decade?
  3. Do official production estimates for milk or horticultural crops square up with HCE data on household consumption?
• So, given the COVID-19 induced conditions, the survey data for enabling informed policymaking is highly inadequate.
• The economic crisis, particularly post lockdown, only further complicates matters.
• Post lockdown, many migrant workers have gone back to their villages.
• So, the upcoming Census could give a distorted picture with regard to migrants.
• Notably, their share in India’s population rose from 29.9% to 37.6% between 2001 and 2011.
• With neither 2020-21 nor 2021-22 set to be “normal years”, any official survey may throw up distorted results, such as a dramatic drop in HCE.

What is the way ahead?

• Finding normal years has become increasingly difficult.
• E.g. in 2016-17, there was demonetisation, in 2017-18, it was GST, 2018-19 and 2019-20 were apparently normal, but 2020 again is faced with lockdown.
• So, it is advisable that the government continuously do surveys without waiting for normal years.

Source: Indian Express