Key objectives of conference were to highlight importance of producing relevant, accurate and timely statistics at both national and sub-national levels for various socio-economic indicators

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) organized a Conference of State Government Ministers on the theme ‘Strengthening of Statistical Systems’ on 5^th April, 2025 at New Delhi. The key objectives of the conference were to highlight importance of producing relevant, accurate and timely statistics at both national and sub-national levels for various socio-economic indicators; to emphasize key areas of collaboration/ partnership for strengthening national and state statistical systems; as well as to deliberate on expectations and requirements of States/UTs to improve their statistical systems.

During the conference, representatives of various States/ UTs were apprised that MoSPI regularly organizes training, workshops and conferences with State Governments and UT Administrations for generation of key statistical products at sub-state (granular) level. These workshops/ trainings are organized with the primary objective of sensitizing and strengthening States/ UTs to ensure consistent and quality data collection and compilation of various indicators aligned with standards followed by MoSPI. Additionally, MoSPI assists States/ UTs by serving as members of committees constituted by the States/ UTs for preparation of various indicators.

Provision for generating district-level estimates has also recently been incorporated in most of the major NSS surveys by adopting ‘district’ as the basic stratum in survey sampling design. Further, the provision of State participation has been introduced in NSS Surveys to generate annual district level estimates of major indicators by the States. These district level estimates are envisaged to facilitate targeted policy formulation at the sub-State level.

The Union Minister, MoSPI released MoSPI’s annual publication namely “Women and Men in India 2024: Selected Indicators and Data” and also launched the website of National Statistical Systems Training Academy (NSSTA), which is the training academy of MoSPI. The revamped Micro-data Portal of MoSPI, which currently hosts data of more than 175 socio-economic surveys, was also launched to improve dissemination of micro-level/ unit-level data. In addition, semantic search on National Industrial Classification Code, developed during the recently concluded Hackathon in IIT Gandhinagar in March, 2025 was also showcased during the Conference.

This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Planning and Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture, Rao Inderjit Singh, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

Statistical system strengthening aims to produce timely, granular district-level statistics enabling state collaboration and improved data dissemination. Conference priorities focus on strengthening statistical systems via collaboration, training and advisory support to align State/UT data collection with national standards. Operational measures include adopting district as the basic stratum in NSS survey designs and introducing State participation to generate annual district-level estimates. Complementary initiatives launched include a National Statistical Systems Training Academy, release of an annual statistical publication, a revamped micro-data portal for survey microdata, and semantic search tools to enhance data dissemination.