Centre withholding data?

Consumer spending lowest in 40 years, yet government won’t release consumer expenditure survey due to ‘data issues’

So, yet again, another report is being kept away from prying eyes of the public.

This time the Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017-18 findings will not be released because of "data quality issues", the government said on Friday, after media reports said that consumer spending in rural areas has plummeted for the first time in more than four decades.

The government was possibly constrained to hold back the report after the Business Standard newspaper cited unpublished data from the National Statistical Office, which said that consumer spending - the total value of goods and services that households spend on – has dropped for the first time since the 1970s.

Consumer demand in villages fell 8.8 per cent between July 2017 and June 2018 - the sharpest 12-month drop since 1972-73, the business daily reported.

Even more worrisome, as per the Business Standard report, the average amount spent by a person went down by 3.7% to Rs 1,446 in 2017-18 from Rs 1,501 in 2011-12. In the same period, expenditure in rural areas declined by 8.8% and increased by 2% in urban areas — overall, a decline of 3.7%.

The centre, however, has rejected the allegation that the NSO report, which was supposed to be published in June, was not released due to its "adverse findings".

"We would like to emphatically state that there is a rigorous procedure for vetting of data and reports which are produced through surveys. All such submissions which come to the Ministry are draft in nature and cannot be deemed to be the final report," the ministry said.

Incidentally, earlier this year, Business Standard had cited the National Sample Survey Office's periodic labour force survey to point out that the country's unemployment rate was at a 45year-high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18. The report was not released on time despite being vetted by the National Statistical Commission.

The Congress on Friday latched on to the controversy with none other than Rahul Gandhi saying that "Modinomics stinks so much," that the Centre has to hide its own reports.

Party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also took a swipe at the government, saying the Modi dispensation is making history by "driving people into poverty".

The fall in consumer spending for the first time in more than four decades is primarily attributed to slackening of rural demand. Priyanka Gandhi tweeted, "Consumer spending in India has collapsed. Successive governments have striven tirelessly to combat poverty and empower the people. This government is making history by driving people into poverty: while rural India faces the dire consequences of their policies, the BJP ensures that their corporate friends become richer by the day."

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said that the most serious matter is that even the consumption of food has declined, which implied that malnutrition was getting worse.