India’s Data Blackout- From Census to Covid Deaths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfD9mveLNGk |castecensus Why is the government suppressing crucial data? Census of 2021 not done, undercounting of Covid deaths, consumer expenditure survey findings junked, controversy over GDP calculations! Even the institutions responsible for data collection are being undermined. Is the government hiding data to evade accountability?
Google translate of You Tube transcript (under edit) When the government was asked in Parliament how many people died due to lack of oxygen during the Covid pandemic, the government replied that data is not available. When information was sought about the paper leaks in NEET and other competitive exams, the government replied that data is not available. When information was sought about the losses in natural disasters in the country, the government said that data is not available. When information was sought on farmer suicides, the government once again said that information is not available. Is it not necessary to have information on such important issues in a democracy? Is the government not escaping accountability by not collecting data? Are we moving towards a data-free India? Today we will discuss all these issues in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. I am Anjali Bhardwaj and with me are the country's well-known run-round economist Professor Jayati Ghosh and RTI activist Amrita. [Music] Johar is the biggest data set of our country, the most important data set. Census has been done every year for the last 150 years. Census is done every 10 years and this census has never stopped, whether there is famine or world war, census is done every 10 years. The last census was done in 2011, but for the first time in 150 years in 2021, it has happened that census was not done. The government said that there is a Covid pandemic, so it will be delayed, but today we are sitting in 2025, everything is going on normally, even today there is no sign of census. A lot of information is collected in the census, which is very important. What is the population at the ground level? What is the sex ratio of the country? The calculation on the basis of religion in the country is collected. Literacy levels are collected. All the information is collected. Jayanti, for the last 14 years, all these extremely important information have not been collected because the census has not been done. So according to you what impact is this having on the governance and policy making of our country? You tell me, I find it so strange that any government can even think that it can run the country without knowing all this because just think about it, we don't even know how many people are there in the country, where do they live, whether they live in villages or cities or small towns or big cities, how many people do what, how many children do they have and if we don't know this and the rest of the things which are shown in the census are how they live, what type of house they have, whether there is electricity or not, whether there is water or not, whether there is a toilet or not, all these things, these figures are included in the census, this is very important if anybody wants to run the country and the state government has been saying for a long time that we ourselves don't know how many people are there in our state, how do we manage that we have some policies like for example food security, now we have decided that 80% of the people of that time in 2011 will get some subsidy. Yes, we get food from ration shops but what is happening now is that after that the population has increased, we don't know exactly how much it has increased but we guess that it must have increased by at least 10 crores and maybe more than that but we don't know how many of these people should get it and right now they are not getting it, so one big thing is that due to lack of census, many people who have entitlement, who have rights are not getting their rights and see the same thing like our NREGA scheme, now that too is on census basis, the common people are not getting their rights because census has not been done and I find it very strange that one, as you said, because of the Covid pandemic, this did not happen but in the same year they did a huge electioneering, in 2021 they did a tremendous electioneering, they did so many big rallies, many things of Kumbh Mela in which there is a crowd, now there is no question of crowd in this, that's it If people would go door to door and ask, then that could have happened and it has happened in other countries, it has happened in countries poorer than us and after that don't tell me, we are probably the only big country which has not done its census yet, so it is very clear that not having a census is not just an academic matter, it is having a very deep impact on people's lives. As you said, the food security law clearly states that how many people will be given ration cards, it is determined on the basis of census calculation and because the census has not been done for 14 years now and the census is increasing, then such estimates are coming that there are about 10-13 crore people who are deprived of ration because the census is not being done, so this means that not having a census is affecting people's lives. If we see what type of information is collected in the census, then broadly demographic data, socio-economic data, housing data, all these things are included. Information and many other indicators are collected, so like in demographic data, it is seen what is the total population, how many women, how many men, what is the age of the population, what is the age distribution, how many people are below 30 years, how many people are old because all this is very important for taking policy decisions, along with this, it is seen that in which economic activities are the people engaged, what work do they do, what are their income levels, as well as which language do they speak, which religion do they follow, how educated are they, if we look at the housing data, then in housing it is seen that what type of house do the people live in, whether it is a concrete house or a kutcha house.
What facilities are there in the house like water, electricity, toilets, are they available or not and along with that an estimate is also made of the total manpower of the scheduled tribes in the country. Another big danger is also of lack of sense which is a case of misinformation. Now governments and sometimes people and parties also make big claims. Many times we also hear that the number of minorities is increasing. Sometimes it is said that the sex ratio has improved a lot in our country. But if people do not have objective data, facts through censuses, then how will all these things be confirmed. Then whatever is said, people will have to believe those claims just like that. So Jyoti that brings me to the politics of data. It is being said again and again that there are political reasons behind not conducting the census. What do you think why the Modi government is delaying the census? No, we know this clearly and we already know that the Modi government is afraid of data. Or I would say the opposite. They want all our data to come to them but none of their data or the data of the common reality should go to the public. So this enmity of theirs with information has already happened with the census and is clearly visible but in many other areas we can see that they are against information. The public should not get information. So the narrative building that we hear about will become very difficult if facts are in front. People will ask questions. There will be critical engagement. If there is objective data, we all remember the days of the Covid pandemic. There was a big controversy on how many people died during the Covid period in the country. Now you So you know that the whole world had the Covid pandemic and so many people died. But in our country, a big charge was put on it that the deaths that happened were under-reported. The government said that only 5 lakh people died in a country of 1.5 billion people, whereas WHO and all the independent estimates were showing that the numbers were much higher than this. Many even said that there were up to 40 lakh and 50 lakh deaths. But the government stuck to its numbers. Now recently, the Civil Registration Survey (CRS) data for 2021 has been published after four years. It is clearly visible in it that the excess deaths that happened in 2021 due to Covid in just one year were close to 22 lakhs. So what is this trend, Jayati? Why are we trying to hide it? Why is the country trying to under-report? Why are we not revealing the real figures like other countries? See, the reality goes against politics, right? That is why. What you said earlier is the same reason that how many people died in the Covid pandemic. If we don't want to know, then the government also doesn't want to know. The strange thing is that at least let's not tell the public. We should know ourselves, we should know ourselves and do something about it. But the whole obsession of this government is what should I say, public relations perception management, they are not that fond of showing off to the people and doing something themselves. I think that now WHO's own estimate was a little more than 40 lakhs, maybe it was around 44 lakhs and the rest of the independent estimates were in the range of 30 lakhs to 80 lakhs. So I would say that the CRS estimate that has come out is also less, that too is an under estimate, it is for one year only, so there are 22 lakhs in it, so if it is for 2 years, then it is around 40 lakhs. Anyway, yes, WHO's estimate was accepted by everyone in the rest of the world, there is not a single country that refused. So whatever WHO said about other countries was almost close to the estimates of those countries but India said no, yes and when it was not even close, they were ready to accept that maybe due to some reason our under reporting is happening, India is the only country and this has happened with WHO, all the international organizations say that India is a fighter and will fight on every thing on the data that why did it say that our nutrition indicator which is food security, we are giving less to women, why are you showing so much anemia, why are you showing more of children, they go and fight on everything and I mean a lot of indicators which are internationally accepted, methodology, everyone means how is the data made, everyone knows very well, all the countries accept it, only the Indian government is against it and fights on everything, so whatever inconvenient data you mean to say that everything is not going well in the country, it is against it. The government at the top digs in its heels and exerts pressure that the data has been changed. Not only this, the findings of the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey conducted in 2017-18 were also inconvenient because it was in a way inconvenient. It showed that people's consumption had gone down and poverty had probably increased. It was never released. It was junked. The same happened with the PLFS survey and the labour survey. So what is this going on, Jayanti? It means it is being delayed. The data sets are not being released or it is delayed. Why is it delayed? No, it was delayed because as you said, it was inconvenient, meaning it was showing the opposite of what the government wanted to say. And the increase in poverty or decrease in employment in 2017-18 was not surprising because it had happened even before that.
Everyone knows the impact of demonetization. After that, GST happened only six-seven months later. It also had a very bad impact on small industries. So the meanings that they have shown are that poverty has increased, especially in rural areas. Small industries have been affected because of this. Employment has also decreased. They did not like all these things, so they put pressure on it. They jumped one completely and delayed the other. They will tell after the elections. So, they do it like this, but what did they do after that? They have not done a consumption survey for many years. Finally, when they did it in 2022-23 and now they are doing one for 2023-24. The figures have not come out yet. But they have changed the entire method of doing it. I mean, they changed the questions they used to ask. They changed the way they used to ask. They changed the exact combination of factors. They changed the entire methodology. So it cannot be compared with the previous ones. Number one, they have done this. Consumption
Survey
Then they added other things in consumption and after doing all this, they have got such a number in which it seems that poverty is less than 5% in our country
It is around 3-4%. Now someone will think that everyone knows this reality.
Go anywhere, even in Delhi city, look outside. Don't even ask about villages. Everyone knows
What is the condition. But our figures are showing that our poverty has reduced completely. We are like China.
They have removed poverty because of figures. By changing the definition of poverty, by changing the methodology, by changing the entire system of the survey and then they removed it and told that yes, look poverty has reduced. So this whole game of figures is going on. I mean, what you said is heard again and again. Recently, the government had said this in the Supreme Court also that look poverty has reduced.
A case of migrant workers was going on that what is the need of ration for so many people because the government gave the figures of Niti Aayog and in that As you said, now Niti Aayog is saying that poverty in our country has gone down to less than 5% and extreme distribution has almost ended and that means we are seeing the misery in our unorganized sector more than 90% people work in the unorganized sector and what is their unemployment status after Covid how are they facing economic destitution in such large pockets all this is visible on one hand people are seeing this truth and as you said the figures are telling something else completely different Jayanti these entire GDP figures are ok before GDP I want to say one more thing please you just said about the employment survey so this is PLFS Periodic Labour for Survey now this is a little okay till now i mean their methodology has also changed but still I would say that this is better than consumption survey yes because some estimation which What we mean is that along with what we are seeing, if you look at PLFS, which comes out every quarter and then there is also a yearly report, then in the last 10 years, the real wages, which is called the salary equivalent to the price, has not increased, rather in some areas like women and self-employed people, the income has decreased in the last 10 years, so how can we say that poverty has gone away? I mean inflation is so big, in the last 10 years, the price of gas cylinder has increased many times, hey, the price of food items, pulses, any thing, the prices of all the essential things have increased, without which you cannot live and here your salary is either the same or is increasing very little, so the real wages are the same or are decreasing, but the government is saying that poverty is ending and I am afraid that PLFS, which was good till now, will also increase on that. There will be some impact because they must not be liking the fact that the real wages that we are talking about are clearly visible from their data, so someone is definitely keeping an eye on this and this too will be changed. Recently in December 2024, a report of India Spent came which told us that there are 16 such critical data sets that the government has not published. These are such databases in which important information is found related to environment, population, agriculture, criminal justice, education levels. So, very important information which should be presented to the government and the country from time to time, such information is in all these data sets. There are many such data sets which should be released every year and many such which should be released at different time intervals. If we see which are these 16 data sets that were not released by the government on time, the first thing that comes to the fore in this is sense, which is It should have been done in 2021, but today we are in 2025 and it has not happened yet. Another important data set in which it has been mentioned is the Crime in India Report. This is a very important report which tells us what is the crime rate across the country, how many crimes have been registered, what type of crimes are happening, how many crimes are happening against women, how many crimes are happening against children, how many cyber crimes are happening, how many crimes are happening in which state, what is the condition of cities, along with what are the trends and analysis regarding crime. This is a very important report, it has not been published since 2022, the same agency which brings out this report.
CRB
It also brings out another report on accidental deaths and suicides. That report has also not been brought out since 2022. Another important data set, All India Survey on Higher Education, has also not been brought out since 2021-22. There has been a lot of controversy on the GDP figures, Jayanti. You have also raised questions. What is this controversy? What is the problem? So, they have changed the methodology. So what happens is that every time GDP is brought out, they say that any base year is kept. So when the base year is changed, the weights also have to be changed. And along with the weights, people also say that look, earlier horticulture was not so much, so increase its weight or if any activity was not so much, then its weight has to be increased. Saying all this, and this should also happen. Just yes, this should also happen. So when the weights were changed in 2011, they also changed the methodology. If they changed the weights, I am not against it at all because it should happen but along with changing the weights, they changed the methodology and the system of doing it and the biggest difference was that earlier we used to do the Index of Industrial Production, which is about the real production, and along with that, the data of the corporations, their output data, all of that was combined and a result was obtained. They said that no, we will take the data of the corporations only and assume that along with it, the informal sector will grow to that extent. Now everyone knows that in the last 15 years, the informal sector has been greatly affected, isn't it? It has been a huge impact, whether it is in manufacturing or in servicing because demonetization happened, GST happened, Covid happened, meaning one after the other, isn't it? Yes, but they did not do a single survey to see what is their share in the total production, which is important. The last survey was done in 2004, which means 20 years ago and that They are using the ratio now and everyone knows that their production ratio must have decreased, it is not possible that it is the same but what they are saying is that they are taking the data of all the big companies and everyone knows that the biggest companies are doing very well, let's take their results and then extrapolate that and put the production of all the industries and the manufacturing on that, so this is a huge overestimation and many economists have written on this, I am not the only one, many economists have written against this and many people say that Arvind Subramaniam himself was the economic advisor of his government, the chief economic advisor, he said that this is not going to be accepted and this is not true and this is complete overestimation but the problem is that the data that is coming out now is not comparable to the previous data but we do not even know what is happening, yes So I am repeatedly saying that the government which wants to run the country needs data. The government which is not so much interested in running the country, what should I say to the country, it is interested in fooling the country, it is interested in forgetting the country in some way, they do not need all this data or they want to do a fraud, so this propaganda is being done in a way, these figures and you have told this very worrying thing Jyoti because if we do not know the reality then what will happen to the public trust finally, how will people understand, how will they engage and how can the government run properly in democracy, so if you think that our biggest goal is to win elections and stay in power, then if this is the goal, then you do not need the truth, you need such things which explain to the people in some way or the other that your condition is bad, your child is not getting a job, the price of food items has increased a lot, your salary is decreasing but you are alone or there are very few people like you, otherwise there are many The economy is doing well, the GDP is growing a lot, there is a lot of progress, there is so much development happening all around us, you are also unlucky, if we can make all this understand to the people then there will not be much problem, can't we? Of course, now we move towards the next session in which we will discuss the issues related to transparency across the country. So recently there was a news that the central government has dissolved the Standing Committee on Statistics. The government said that it was dissolved because their work was overlapping with another committee, but the head of this committee, Dr. Pranab Sen, who has also been the Chief Statistician of our country, told that the members were not given any information as to why the committee was dissolved and he also said that in every meeting the members were raising this question to the government that why are you not doing the census, if you delay the census of 2021 so much, then how will you work on statistics? It may be so and many reports said that perhaps due to this reason that committee was dissolved. Similarly, if we see, in July 2023, the director of the institute which conducts the National Family Health Survey was suddenly suspended by the government without any news. The government then said that he was suspended due to some issues. But many reports came which said that because there were some findings of that survey which the government did not like, especially anemia which is increasing in the country. Another issue was that the number of toilets was looking very less. This issue is also being discussed.
In surveys which were going against the claims of the government, it is possible that they were removed for that reason. So, all the institutions whose job is to collect data in the country, analyse it and present it before the country and the government, if there is so much interference in all of them, how do you see the impact of all this? The impact is complete destruction and this is a matter of great sadness because the statistical system of our country India, I would say, was an example in the world that such a good statistical system with such an appropriate methodology can be created in a poor country and this means that it has been there for many years that all the methodologies of our surveys were prepared after a lot of thought and with a lot of independence, so to completely end this system in just a few years is a matter of great sadness and now I would say that we cannot trust the government data at all. Most of the people They do not trust at all, but this loss of trust has a much bigger impact because after this the common people will not trust anyone, okay this government has done this, now even if any other government comes, they will still say that okay those people were speaking this way, you people are speaking this way, right? So this loss of trust is not a matter of great sadness, it is a matter of fear for the society, it is a matter of fear for our entire future, so how do you see this, somewhere there is a narrative control to create control over the institutions, so that they do not say what they are seeing correctly and they say what the government wants, so how do you see this, Amrita, this is a very big concern in our country, how the institutions are being undermined, how they are being attacked and this is not only about statistical institutions, there are also institutions of oversight, whether they are investigative institutions, ED, CBI, as it is repeatedly said, caged parents. Information Commissions, CBCs are being formed. All these institutions are being compromised. Governments are controlling them. Now it is very important, as you said, that the data in the country should come out and correct data should come out. It is very important that these institutions can do their work without any fear or pressure of any control. I think it is very important that there should be debate on all these things in the country today. There should be discussion about what changes are required now. Now in many institutions, it is very clear that there should be no interference from the government. Institutions should not be under the government at all, whether it is Lokpal or any other institution. But it is possible that statistical institutes need to work under some ministry. But what is the way to remove it? What is the way to appoint their top people? They should be very impartial. There should be absolutely no interference from the government so that they decide what will come out, what will they write, whether they will publish it or not. There should be a lot of discussion on this. It is necessary and in a democracy people will have to put pressure on these institutions to ensure that the work is done properly otherwise as you said that there is no hope that we can reach the truth and as you were saying that the director of the institute that conducted the family health survey was removed and a case was filed against him, now you think what the next director will do, he will do whatever the government wants out of fear because yes, all these institutions are being closed due to the chilling effect and this fear, yes, in a way, the cruel sword will be hung on your neck now, so recently another news came that there is a doctor KV Babu who is an ophthalmologist and has been using RTI for a long time regarding public health issues, so he filed an RTI in which he asked whether the families of the doctors who died during Covid got compensation or not, so he asked this question How many such families got compensation and how much displacement happened on top of this, the government replied that this data is not held in material form, that is, we do not have this data in material form, so we cannot give you this data. They also asked for this information state wise, especially in Delhi and Kerala, the same answer came from there too, so somewhere we are seeing that at one time during Covid, the government came forward very enthusiastically to call them Covid warriors and celebrate them, but today when the time has come that we should support their families, we should stand with their families, somewhere the government is seen to be reneging on its responsibilities, so how do you see this thing and it also came out that the government does not have the data on how many deaths have happened among the frontline warriors who are the frontline workers of our country, see, the government does not have any data, as you said in the beginning itself, they do not keep the data, it means collect They don't do it, why don't they do it because they don't have to be accountable, it's a simple thing and if they say that yes so many people got compensation etc. which is definitely there, if it has been given at all somewhere then it will be known that it is less than what you said, then they will have to answer why it is less, how did you give it, to whom did you give it, why did you give it, they don't have to say all this, so that's why if you ask anything, this is one thing, you give it
Well, there are thousands of such cases where the answer will be like this, we do not have any data on this because the accountable ones are not there. Anjali, this seems to me a simple question that if the data is not collected, then a very good technique of invoking RTI has emerged. You say on every question that data is not available, so how do you see this? See, as you said, the government is saying that the question of compensation does not arise because we do not have the data, so not keeping the data is also emerging as a complete strategy. And I always say that if the data is not collected then what is the point of the right to information? I mean the Supreme Court is saying that in a democracy, we all should have the right to ask for information. It is a constitutional right, a fundamental right, but if there is no information, then what will we ask for? So no data means no right to information means no accountability. If there is no data, then there is no right to information. So, I understand that the government is not accountable. And on top of this, there are other rights as well, there are no rights at all, like just look at what happened, the stampede in Uttar Pradesh, how many people died on it, what happened, there is no information, when reporters ask, cases are filed against them, otherwise you are absolutely right, the government was giving figures every day, how many people reached Kumbh, but when asked how many died in the stampede, it said that these are not figures, so the convenient figures are such that the government was giving such numbers in crores, that we are able to count, but the government said that it will not be able to give the number of people who died, so that is all for today, thank you, Jayati Amrita, if you have any suggestions or questions regarding transparency, then you must write to us, our address