National Statistical Commission Appoints New Chairperson and Members

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of a new Chairperson and three Members to India's National Statistical Commission (NSC). Dr. Saibal Chattopadhyay, former Director of Indian Institute of Management Kolkata, was appointed as part-time Chairperson. He holds a Ph.D in Statistics and MS in Statistics from University of Connecticut, with specialization in sequential methods, survey sampling, multi-stage sampling methods, and quantitative techniques in marketing research.

Three part-time Members were appointed: Prof. Shubhabrata Das, Professor at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, who holds a Ph.D. and MS in Statistics from University of North Carolina with specialization in statistics, operational research, and actuarial mathematics; Shri Satyendra Bahadur Singh, a retired Indian Statistical Service officer (1987 batch) with over three decades of experience in official statistics, economic statistics, and labor statistics; and Dr. Madhavan Mukund, Director of Chennai Mathematical Institute, who holds a PhD in Computer Science from Aarhus University, Denmark.

The National Statistical Commission, established in 2005, serves as India's nodal body for all core statistical activities. The Commission consists of a part-time Chairperson, four part-time Members with specialization in statistics, and includes the CEO of NITI Aayog as an ex-officio Member. The Secretary of the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation serves as Secretary to the NSC.

The NSC is responsible for evolving national statistical policies and priorities, improving public trust in official statistics, setting standard statistical concepts and methodologies, laying down national quality standards for core statistics, and coordinating statistical activities across central government ministries, state governments, and union territory administrations. The Commission also undertakes statistical audits to ensure quality and integrity of statistical products and monitors the performance of India's statistical system.