New Delhi: In an interview with The Indian Express, statistician Pronab Sen has highlighted how suppression of data by the government has led to leaks that have resulted in the government disowning the data or ‘demonising’ it. This, the former Chief Statistician of India said, has deeply affected the country’s statistical system.Sen now heads the body formed by the government in the backdrop of heavy criticism of its attitude of data suppression, the 28-member Standing Committee on Economic Statistics.To the newspaper, he said that it was of paramount importance that the government adheres to a calendar for the release of all economic data sets. This would not only restore the credibility of India’s statistics but also reduce lags if the data itself is unpalatable.The current government has been criticised for its blatant suppression of data that experts suspect show its economic policy decisions in bad light. In an article written while the controversy over the National Population Register was first making itself heard, The Wire‘s Jahnavi Sen had highlighted the key fields in which the government had not published data or sought to challenge data leaked from unpublished surveys.Also read: Six Numbers the Modi Government Did Not Want You to Know in 2019Data on unemployment, consumer expenditure, GDP growth, farmer suicides, along with the caste census and numbers on lynchings had been suspiciously held for a long time. In the first instance, the data had been leaked ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2019. For consumer spending too the numbers had been leaked in November, 2019. For GDP growth, the government released new back series data to show that earlier years had done worse than assumed.Data on farmer suicides has since been released, showing that nearly 28 farmers killed themselves each day in 2018. There was also a two-year delay in the release of the 2017 crime statistics by the NCRB. When it did release the numbers, the promised section on lynchings was missing.The government, notes Express as well, is yet to release the Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18, the Annual Consumption Expenditure Survey for 2017-18 and the Mudra survey.In November 2019, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) had decided not to release the Consumer Expenditure Survey results of 2017-18, citing data quality issues. The MOSPI had also mentioned that an expert panel has recommended that 2017-18 would not be an appropriate fiscal to be used as a base year for new GDP series.Sen, though critical, is clear on the limitations of his position. He said that it ended with “submission of good and timely data to the National Statistical Office”. However, he expressed misgivings with the draft National Statistical Commission Bill, which he said would turn the Commission (the apex statistical body even above the NSO) powerless.“With this Bill, power of NSC will be zero. Think of what this Bill is doing. You are converting the NSC into a public sector undertaking. That’s what you are doing. Has a ministry ever listened to a PSU? The ministry tells the PSU, not the other way round. And, this Bill creates a PSU called the NSC,” he is quoted as having said.Stressing on the need for quarterly data, which would give time to access and process information, Sen warned against suppression of data and the dangerous effects it has. “When data gets suppressed and then gets leaked, that happened over the last one year, the government’s reaction has been to actually demonise the data. That’s been the reaction. So earlier nobody questioned the data per se, now the government itself is questioning the data. And there’s this bizarre situation of people outside the government, the users, are saying, no, this data is fine. It should be exactly the other way round,” he is quoted by the newspaper as having said.In March 2019, expressing concerns over “political interference” in influencing statistical data in India, as many as 108 economists and social scientists had called for restoration of “institutional independence” and integrity to the statistical organisations.