Chidambaram Blames Govt's 'Malicious Negligence' for ‘Demise’ of Statistics Panel Amid Job Data Row

New Delhi: With two members of the National Statistical Commission resigning, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday said that one more venerable institution has died due to the government's "malicious negligence".

The former finance minister's attack on the government came in the wake of two independent members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) — PC Mohanan and JV Meenakshi — resigning on Monday over disagreement with the government on certain issues. Mohanan was also the acting chairperson.

The Indian Express reported that the two quit in protest against the withholding of the NSSO's (National Sample Survey Organisation) first Annual Survey on Employment and Unemployment for the year 2017-18. This report, the first by NSSO in this government, was expected to reflect job losses in the wake of demonetisation, they stated.

“One more venerable institution died on 29 January 2019 owing to malicious negligence by the government,” Chidambaram tweeted.

“We mourn the death of the National Statistical Commission and remember with gratitude its valiant fight to release untainted GDP data and employment data. May the NSC rest in peace until it is re-born again!” he said in a series of tweets.

With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members —Chief Statistician

Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

In November last year, the NITI Aayog had come under fire for announcing the revised GDP data of the UPA years.

NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Chief Statistician Srivastava had announced the back-series data by the government.