Indian Official Statistics: Part IV

Now, that we’ve learnt about what are the types of Statistical Offices and their degree of centralisation, we will now learn about their functioning.

1. Financial and Banking Statistics

Financial statistics can be divided into two groups

(i)                 Statistics relating to banking and insurance, and

(ii)               Statistics relating to public finance

Banking statistics are compiled and published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI is the note-issuing authority and controls the country’s foreign exchange. It is the bank of bankers. To discharge these duties, the RBI collects a large mass of data. These are presented by the RBI in the following publications:

(i)                 Statement of the affairs of the Reserve Bank of India (weekly) – It gives the data at the close of Friday on the assets and liabilities of the banking and issue departments of the RBI separately, loans and advances made to scheduled banks and state co-operative banks, transactions in foreign currency, clearing house statistics and money rates.

(ii)               Reserve Bank of India Bulletin (monthly) – The first part gives various articles on banking, money and credit; the second part gives statistical tables regarding currency and banking, public finance and other economic statistics.

These include statistics on: the liabilities and assets of RBI, all scheduled banks all scheduled commercial banks, foreign banks and State co-operative banks, etc.; advances of scheduled commercial banks, borrowings of scheduled commercial banks from the RBI, advances of the RBI to scheduled commercial banks and State co-operative banks, cheque clearances, money supply with the public, foreign exchange rates, money rates, and India’s foreign exchange reserves.

(iii)             Report of Currency and Finance (annual) – Part I of the report gives an over-all review of the Indian economy. Part II deals in detail with developments in various sectors of the economy. Part 3 contains a wealth of materials on various sectors, including the sector of banking.

(iv)             Statistical Tables Relating to Banks in India (annual) – Part I gives summary tables ; Part II gives detailed tables containing data so individual scheduled and non-scheduled commercial banks ; and Part III has appendices containing information on location of various banks, etc.. The detailed information given in it is not available in any other report.

(v)               Trend and Progress of Banking in India (annual) – It is an annual report giving a review of important events in the field of banking during the year. The statistics given here are also available in other RBI publications.

The main publications giving insurance statistics are:

(a)    The Indian Insurance Year-Book (Controller of Insurance, Ministry of Finance)

(b)   Annual Report of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).

Public finance statistics are available in the annual budgets of the Central and State Governments. These gives a complete account of the respective Governments. Public finance statistics regarding the Railways are separately available from the Railway Budget of the Central Government. The important publications are:

(a)    Budget of the Central Government (annual)

(b)   Economic Survey (annual)

(c)    Report on Currency and Finance (annual)

1. Statistics of labour and employment
   1. The decennial population census constitutes the main source of information on the economically active population of the country. A large mass of data on such items as age and sex-composition of workers. Their rural –urban distribution, and their industrial and occupational classification flow out of the census.
   2. The NSSO has been conducting surveys of employment regularly once in every five years since 1972-73.
   3. The Employment Market Information (EMI) programme of the Directorate-General of Employment & Training (DGET), in terms of the provisions of the Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959, makes available data on the organised sectors of the economy. The programme covers all public sector establishments (except for the defence establishments and the armed forces) and those private sector establishments which employ at least 25 persons on any day during the given quarter.
   4. Beginning from 1966, private sector establishments employing 10 to 24 people are also being covered on a voluntary basis. The data collected under the programme are presented in the Quarterly Employment Review (DGET), the Employment Review (DGET, annual), and the Occupational Education Pattern in India (DGET, biennial), the last with one series for the Public Sector and another for the Private Sector. The DGET also brings out the Census of Central Government Employees (annual), giving detailed data on gazetted and non-gazetted employees of the Central Government.
   5. The DGET data, it is to be noted, does not cover self-employed people, part-time employees, agricultural and allied occupations, household establishments and establishments employing less than 1- workers in the private sector.
   6. The National Employment Service, with nearly 440 employment exchanges is another source of data on employment. The data relate to job seekers registered with the employment exchanges. But these data suffer from obvious defects:

(i)                 The registration being voluntary, not all unemployed people register themselves with the exchanges;

(ii)               A registrant need not necessarily be unemployed;

(iii)             There is the possibility of multiple registration; and

(iv)             As the employment exchanges are located mostly in urban areas, the data does not reflect the magnitude of unemployment in the rural areas.

1. The Labour Bureau (LB) is the other important source of labour statistics. It collects, compiles and publishes statistics of employment in respect of factories, mines, plantations, shops and commercial establishments, etc., on all-Indi basis. Most of these data are obtained as a by-product of the administration of the various Labour Laws operating in the relevant sectors.
2. Information on employment and unemployment of agricultural labour is collected through the Agricultural/Rural Labour Enquiries conducted at intervals of six years or more. The data so collected appear in the following publications:

(i)                 Indian Labour Statistics (LB, annual)

(ii)               Indian Labour Journal (LB, monthly)

(iii)             Indian Labour Year-Book (LB)