Bhopal Marks World Statistics Day
To mark the first “World Statistics Day” the Department of Economics and Statistics in partnership with the UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh organised a stakeholder’s workshop for the departmental officers at Bhopal. Officers of departments like Census, Birth & Death registration, Food and Civil supplies, Agriculture and UNICEF also participated.
Inaugurating the workshop Finance Minister Raghavji said that statistics is a foundation for measuring the development of states and countries. He further added that it is the analysis and interpretation of the statistical data which is important.
‘The World is economically growing so is India but also the increasing disparity between the rich and poor’. ‘The State of Madhya Pradesh has shown some good progress and its GDP has grown, however on some human development indicators particularly infant and maternal mortality we are behind. We have taken some recent steps which will have impact but need to increase the pace’ he added. K. Suresh, Principal Secretary of the Department of Planning, Economics & Statistics speaking at the meeting said we not only need to update our data regularly, undertake fast analysis and make it available for planning and public use.’
S P Sharma, the Commissioner Economics and Statistics spoke on application of Statistics in planning, policy formulation and decision-making. He in his presentation spoke on the use of statistics in various sectors and how effective statistical systems are important for both economic and human development in the state. He further added that Statistical analysis helps the States to understand how programs and schemes are doing at implementation levels, to understand importance of rising prices. He also stressed on the importance of birth and deaths registration in generating human development indicators’.
The presentation from UNICEF highlighted the importance of data dissemination, its analysis and use in state policy formulation and in development planning. A progress on MP devInfo to track data against 100 development indicators in partnership with the state planning commission, the Government of Madhya Pradesh and support to improve Vital statistics through DES (directorate of economics and statistics) was also mentioned as areas of support to the state government.
The United Nations has marked the 20th of October as World Statistics Day and this year it is the inaugural first World Statistics Day. The day will help acknowledge the service provided by the global statistical system at national and international levels, and hope to help strengthen the awareness and trust of the public in official statistics. It will help to advocate supporting the work of statisticians across different settings, cultures, and domains.
