BENGALURU: The quality of data in India is not up to the mark and “it has only become worse” given that they have not been updated, and the country’s statistical system needs an overhaul, said Neelkanth Mishra, chairperson, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and part-time member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council.
Industrial projection data is completely discounted from reality. In a fast-growing economy like India, the economic structure keeps changing and surveys need to be done continuously, he said.
“We had to discard the 2018 survey because of demonetisation and then COVID-19 happened so the quality is extremely bad. With the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the data is expected to be slightly better with representation of current trends,” the economist said at the Azim Premji University public lecture series on Tuesday.
On India’s growth, Mishra highlighted that India will grow at a rate of over 7%, but it will be “unequal growth” and the country should be ready for this given that there would be political implications and a need for policy intervention. He also spoke about the threat that China will pose globally in the future. While the world expected the country to export inflation given that its production is on the rise, however, Chinese markets have cut costs drastically, hinting the opposite that “China will be exporting deflation”.
On the government’s priorities, the economists said more stress needs to be given to intellectual property (IB) creation. “The only countries that have broken through the middle-income trap which is 10,000 dollars in income per capita are the countries who invested heavily in research and development, and started owning brands and technologies.” He added that the country already needs to start working on the goal as the model of development from middle income to high income is very different from low to middle. India needs to go from “foreign-developed technology to self-developed.”
Explaining the labour share of income in India, he said it has been moving upwards since the last decade which is a good indicator to reduce inequality.
“The worker participation ratio in India is going up. Currently, we have 14-15 million workers extra in the economy which is also affecting the labour pricing in the country,” he said emphasising that it will take some time to resolve this “excess.”
The economist also stressed on the importance of government-to-government connections (G2G). He added that multinational companies are a projection of soft power and India should focus on it.