The Annual Statistics Conference 2012 of the Reserve Bank of India was organised by its Department of Statistics and Information Management on March 17-18, 2012 in Chandigarh. This conference provided a platform to the statisticians of the Reserve Bank to present their research before the external experts and receive their feedback in order to make analysis more meaningful for policy and research.

Dr. K. C. Chakrabarty and Dr. Subir Gokarn, Deputy Governors; Shri Deepak Mohanty, Executive Director; Heads of select departments/office of the Reserve Bank; renowned statisticians and economists from the academia; and RBI statisticians participated in the conference.

The conference highlighted some broad principles of statistical activity in the Reserve Bank. The two key takeaways were:

• The Reserve Bank plays an important role in providing a large pool of statistics as public good. This, however, puts on it the concomitant responsibility to provide timely, reliable and meaningful data and its dissemination, by harnessing technology to its fullest possible extent.

• The statistical research also needs to encompass operational areas, such as, bank supervision and further develop database for risk assessment, rural credit and financial inclusion.       

The conference deliberated on issues in coverage of banking data, need for its improvement and develop micro-level, granular and consistent data to enhance its utility in policy making. It underscored the need to strengthen the database on areas like regional and sectoral distribution of non-performing assets through more effective utilisation of the existing data systems of banks.

Building on the initiatives of the Department in bridging data gaps, undertaking forward looking surveys, providing research inputs, and data dissemination for public use, some areas of further work were identified.

These included building statistical intelligence for regional agricultural conditions and price developments; initiating quarterly survey on retail sales; strengthening modelling and forecasting capabilities; and broadbasing statistical research across departments and regional offices to address operational issues.

The technical sessions of the conference deliberated upon analytical issues in modelling, external sector developments, banking and corporate sector, surveys, risk measurement and other relevant areas.

A new user-friendly interface for the Database on the Indian Economy (DBIE) of the Reserve Bank was released during the conference, which is now open to the public on the RBI website (URL http://dbie.rbi.org.in).

Alpana Killawala
Chief General Manager