New Delhi, Sep 9 (IANS) The government Tuesday said the states should put in place an effective mechanism to enhance the “credibility and reliability” of their data.“I urge the state governments to put in place an effective arrangement to monitor the collection of state level statistics, which would enhance their credibility and reliability,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here.

“The national statistics need to be supplemented by state level statistics which would allow comparable analysis of economic problems and performance at the level of individual states,” he said.

The prime minister was addressing a national conference of states and union territories here on statistics management, organised by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

Singh also underlined the need for better co-ordination between the state-run Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) and the central ministries, and also between the state statistical bureaus and ministries in the states and union territories.

To strengthen the administrative machinery for data collection and co-ordination among different stakeholders, the prime minister called for upgrading “technical capabilities at the ground level and greater attention being paid at the highest executive level”.

“I urge the state and union territories to establish and institutionalise effective coordination mechanisms by empowering state statistical bureaus to play the nodal role of vertical and horizontal coordination of statistical data.”

To buttress his point, Singh referred to India’s National Statistical Commission’s observation that “over the years, the administrative statistical system has been deteriorating and has now almost collapsed in certain sectors”.

Singh said data storage efficiency could be improved with computerisation, and that there was need to attach greater importance to primary data collection and recording.

“Reliable statistical data are of crucial importance for the formulation of macro-economic policies and programmes and for assessing the impact of specific policies in terms of achieving their goals and objectives,” the prime minister said.