New Delhi: The report that states the country’s unemployment rate raised to a 45-year-high in 2017-2018 are “not verified” and the “veracity of the data is not known”, NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Thursday.
“Government did not release the data (on jobs) as it is still being processed. When the data is ready we will release it. Data collection method is different now; we are using a computer assisted personal interviewee in the new survey. It is not right to compare the two data sets, this data is not verified. It is not correct to use this report as final,” Kumar added.
Explaining Kumar’s point that the two reports can’t be compared, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said earlier the data collection and analysis was done in five years.
“We are doing it quarter by quarter. We are capturing incremental change. You need to have four quarters to see if there is an increase or decrease. You’ll need data from fifth quarter to be able to compare the data,” Kant said.
This clarification comes after the government faced opposition attacks over the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)’s periodic labour force survey, which was withheld by the government but was accessed by the Business Standard newspaper.
The report, revealed a day before the government's interim Budget, sets up a huge controversy just ahead of the 2019 general elections.
According to the report, the National Sample Survey Office conducted between 2017-2018 showed the unemployment rate stood at 6.1 percent, the highest since 1972-73.
The NSSO's annual household survey of 2017-18 is the first after the November 2016 demonetisation, when PM Modi declared an overnight ban on high-value notes.
