Nodal agency declared for statistical activities

Department of Economics & Statistics have been declared as the nodal agency for all statistical activities in the state.
“This calls for enforcement and development of the existing statistical system in the state to improve the quality of data which has become the primary concern in the economic planning and development process of our state,” parliamentary secretary for economics and statistics Tohanba said while inaugurating the two day workshop on data collection and Improvement of Statistical System with special emphasis on State Domestic Product for strengthening state plan for human development on Thursday at the Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Nagaland.
He also opined that official statistics have certainly become powerful, empowering the common man to participate in public scrutiny and debate on the functioning of the government and facilitates in taking about its success and failures. “It is responsibility of the department to keep the statistics system strong and vibrant with new techniques and methodologies,” he added.
Stressing on the need to focus on sound statistical system that would be indispensable in generating reliable statistical data, he said that a strong statistical system is fundamental for formulation of economic policies. He also added that it provides indicators on the performance of the economy, forming a basis for the projection for future development and pointed out that the statistical indicator facilitates comparative analysis on the economy of the state with other states in the country.
The parliamentary secretary hoped that the workshop will be of great use to the officers and staffs of the department in bringing out a more effective and reliable estimate of SDP and GDP. He further pointed out that the workshop will have a special focus on the estimation of the State Domestic Product (SDP) and income of the state or country, which is one among the most important indicators projecting the trend in the economic process of the state
Earlier the keynote address was giving by Dr. Sapita Sharma, Deputy Director General National Accounts Division, CSO, while the function was chaired by Additional Chief Secretary & Development Commissioner, Alemtemshi, (IAS).
It was learned that the two-day training cum workshop mainly focused on the following objectives- explain concept and definitions of economic activities, define state income in terms of State Domestic Product (SDP) / District Domestic Product(DDP) and methodology of these components, calculate and compute SDP/ DDP of agriculture, forest, fishing, mining and quarrying ; prepare individual estimates of various sectors using production, income and expenditure approaches and discuss vital statistics.