New Delhi, July 18: Terming the matter to be serious, the Central Statistical head today in the upper house of parliament admitted that there had been a data leak of unemployment figures and that the efforts were being made to ascertain who was behind it.
Rao Inderjit Singh of the Statistics department, while addressing the house said that they had changed the methodology for ascertaining unemployment rates as a periodic survey was being held every year based on quarterly data, against the five year surveys earlier.
"It is right that there was a data leak. Our survey result was to come out on May 30, 2019, but before that the data was leaked. We have taken this very seriously. Maybe someone has an agenda behind it and the data was leaked. We are making efforts to ascertain who was behind the leak”, the minister told members.
Singh further said that some changes were also being made in the methodology and technology that was used and that is why there was a difference in previous surveys done by NSSO.
"The new method now is a yearly method taking into account quarterly surveys. The only comparability that can happen is when the next year data comes. At present, it was compared to 6.1 per cent and the yearly data cannot be compared with the 5 year figure," he said.
The minister further said, “The government takes unemployment very seriously and to alleviate the unemployment scenario, the government has taken a number of steps”.