data collection

The recent Government of India recommendation for monthly length/height measurements by anganwadi workers promises to be a disaster in its current form and might lead to a severe derailing of the existing system of data collection and management, leading to further chaos and misreporting on malnutrition.

In recent years, the Indian official data has been challenged for many reasons, most of them arising out of the perception that the government is reluctant to release unfavourable data. These doubts have been exacerbated by the controversy posed by the debate around Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Population Register, and National Register of Citizens and the weakening of established institutions like the National Statistical Commission. The COVID-19 pandemic has further upset the data collection so that the first phase of the decennial population census and the proposed NPR exercise now stand postponed. Questions on credibility of official data and the pandemic-induced problems have come at a time when technology offers solutions to data collection, processing and dissemination. The initiatives launched by the government to improve the statistical system utilise these possibilities.

The main objective of collecting land use statistics in India has been to facilitate agricultural accounting. Rise in human and livestock population and development of modern agriculture have led to degradation of land and environment. If unchecked, the land resource may become increasingly less productive and may get irreversibly damaged. It is important therefore that a systematic data base is built to assess changes in land use and the type and extent of environmental damage to land resource. This paper describes the existing system for generating land use data and shows that it is not adequate to enable environmental assessment of land use. It makes a case for technological advancement and institutional changes to improve the land use data base in the country.