COMPUTER CENTRE

The Computer Centre of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation was set up in 1967 to cater to the data-processing needs of the then Department of Statistics and other Government agencies. From its inception, the Centre has effectively performed the pioneering task of building databases for different organisations of the Union Government and played a vital role in imparting intensive training to official statisticians in system analysis and electronic data processing. Primarily identified as an agency responsible for processing voluminous data collected in the surveys and economic censuses conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation and the Central Statistical Organisation, the Centre has been progressively developing its capabilities in application of information technology in processing of data, creation of National Data Warehouse of official statistics and preservation of databases and effective dissemination of statistics in the required form. At present the centre possesses latest Hardware & Software and a group of highly skilled & experienced EDP professionals.

§ documentation of the Computerized Applications and compilation of metadata for current and future references and use;

§ preservation of data and results on computer media for dissemination and use;

§ Setting up of Intranet in the MOS&PI using Lotus Domino Suite application software under Linux.

The “National Policy on Dissemination of Statistical Data”, adopted by the Government of India in September 1998, had identified the Ministry of Statistics and PI as the nodal agency for dissemination of official statistics produced by Central Government Ministries and Departments. The Computer Centre, entrusted with this onerous task by the Ministry of Statistics and PI, has surged ahead to fulfil the commitment made in the policy by setting up user-friendly systems for dissemination of data. Under the dissemination policy, the validated unit-level data, i.e. cleaned person-, household- and establishment-level data, are now being made available to the users on demand, after the release of published reports based on them or after completion of three years of field work, whichever is earlier.

Technical guidance for the use of basic data and their processing, along with the relevant metadata, is also provided on request to the users both within and outside the country. These are disseminated regularly to a large number of national and international users at prices quoted in the rate list displayed on the ministry’s website. The price of the data on each subject is fixed on cost basis. The cost includes consumables used and computer time utilized for cutting CDs, and excludes cost of data collection, data entry and data validation.

No other country in the world disseminates the entire unit-level data of a survey or census. India’s initiative in this respect has been greeted by international users. As revealed by Table 1, the number of international and domestic users of unit-level data and revenue realised from the sales grown at equally fast rates.

The unit-level data of the socio-economic surveys of the NSSO are the most sought after by the users. About three-fourths of the requests for data made so far are for the data of socio-economic surveys. Table 2 shows the growing number of users of NSSO unit-level data and revenue realised from their dissemination.

A socio-economic survey of the NSSO is generally conducted on a randomly selected sample of households or establishments drawn from the selected area units. Data pertaining to small area units like a village or slums or community land and water resources have also been collected in some of the rounds. As a general rule, interview method of data collection is used in these surveys.

The Computer Centre has shouldered the responsibility of processing and tabulation of NSS data (and been partly involved in the data cleaning effort) right from the 27^th round (1972-73) onwards to the 50^th round (1993-94) it also preserves the unit-level data of the 38^th round (1983) and of all the rounds conducted since the 42^nd round (1986-87) for dissemination. The details of availability of data, subjects covered in each of these rounds and their prices are available on the ministry’s website.

Table 2 Growing Number of Users of Unit-level Socio-Economic Survey Data and Revenue Realised
Year	No. of Users	Revenue realised
Year	No. of Users	Rs.	US $	UK ₤
1999-2000	50	3,85,259	5,031	512
2000-2001	39	4,77,533	3,194	952
2001-2002	80	9,89,585	6,608	447
2002-2003	82	5,98,516	13,523	93
2003-2004	78	10,87,333	14,876	870
2004-2005	90	14,31,405	12,310	417
2005-2006	126	12,47,293	12,145	--
2006-2007	185	15,68,785	34,013	284
2007-2008	181	21,79,096	33,636	2,131
Total	861	37,47,881	1,35,336	5,706

The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) is a nation-wide survey of registered manufacturing units. It is designed to generate comprehensive data for

§ estimation of contribution of organised manufacturing industry to National Income and

The coverage of ASI extends to the entire Factory Sector comprising establishments registered under 2m(i) and 2m(ii) of the Factories Act 1948. All such establishments belonging to proprietorship, partnership and corporate enterprises are included in the coverage. Earlier, certain Government undertakings were also covered. Since 1998-99, all establishments of Government undertakings like the Railway workshops, Post & Telegraph workshops, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) are kept outside the coverage of the ASI.

All establishments coming under the coverage of the ASI are classified into two groups, viz. “Census sector” and “Sample sector”. While all the units of the Census sector are surveyed every year, only a sample of units from the Sample sector is surveyed in the survey. For the ASI conducted for the years 1997-98 to 1999-2000, the Census sector comprised all establishments with 200 or more workers. Since the ASI of 2000-01, the Census sector is defined to consist of all establishments with 100 or more workers. The Census sector, however, includes all establishments of those 4-digit classes of NIC1998 of the relatively under-industrialised States /U.T.s of Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Andaman & Nicobar Islands which have 5 or less units.

The sampling strategy for the ASI has changed since the ASI for 2004-05. Earlier, for the ASI of 1998-99 to 2003-04, a random sample of units from the Sample sector was drawn independently every year. The sample size was determined separately for each 4-digit class of NIC 1998 of a State / U.T. to attain a 10 per cent precision of the estimate of gross value added with 99 per cent level of confidence. The sampling strategy adopted since ASI of 2004-05 can be characterised as follows:

§ the constitution of the Sample and Census sector would not be changed during 2004-05 to 2008-09

§ selection of five circular systematic samples for each 4-digit class of NIC 1998 of a State / U.T., covering the entire Sample sector, with a plan to survey one sample a year during 2004-05 to 2008-09

Complete processing and software development, including tabulation, of the ASI data of 1974-75 to 1994-95 was done at Computer Centre. The processing and tabulation of ASI data of 1995-96 onwards is being done at CSO, IS Wing, Kolkata. The unit-level ASI data are processed to generate tables containing estimates of the parameters mentioned above by State and Industry (3 digit), State and Industry (2 digit), and All-India level estimates by industry at 3-digit and 2-digit levels of NIC 1998. The establishment-level data collected in the surveys are also available to the users.

The unit-level data of the ASI are in good demand. The number of requests for ASI data received at the Centre comes second only to those for NSSO socio-economic data. Table 3 shows the number of users of ASI data and the revenue realisation resulting from their dissemination.

Table 3 Growing Number of Users of ASI Unit-level Data and Revenue Realised
Year	No. of Users	Revenue realised
Year	No. of Users	Rs.	US $	UK ₤
1999-2000	8	98,148	--	--
2000-2001	10	18,801	--	--
2001-2002	20	3,81,647	524	--
2002-2003	29	4,23,549	160	--
2003-2004	25	3,26,697	546	--
2004-2005	32	4,91,155	5,662	--
2005-2006	48	3,51,516	14,616	127
2006-2007	41	10,60,159	9,416	67
2007-08	42	11,43,254	26,816	37
Total	172	20,91,513	21,508	127

The Computer Centre also preserves data of the last three, i.e. 3^rd ,4^th and 5^th Economic Censuses conducted during 1990, 1998 and 2005 by the CSO, for dissemination. Complete data processing and software development for data entry, validation and tabulation of Third Economic Census (EC 1990) & Fourth Economic Census (EC 1998) was done at Computer Centre and Fifth Economic Census (EC 2005) is in progress.

The unit-level data are available for dissemination to users in text, database or table format. The contents of the Economic Census datasets are described in some detail in Chapter II. The users have the choice of requesting for data of Economic Census for selected States. Table 4 provides the number of users of Economic Census data and the revenue realisation resulting from their dissemination.

Table 4 Number of Users of Unit-level Economic Census Data and Revenue Realised
Year	No. of Users	Revenue realised
Year	No. of Users	Rs.	US $	UK ₤
2000-2001	3	15,242	--	--
2001-2002	6	1,12,126	--	--
2002-2003	3	15,082	--	--
2003-2004	11	47,041	--	--
2004-2005	8	1,07,924	--	--
2005-2006	12	1,29,215	--	--
2006-2007	1	--	--	--
2007-2008	--	6,424	--	--
Total	43	4,26,630	--	--

General Index Numbers for 59 Centres and All-India as also those at Group and Sub-Group level are available for dissemination from November 1987 at Computer Centre and also it is being updated regularly. So far only 5 users have requested for price index data – 3 in 2004-05 and 2 in 2005-06. The Centre has realised Rs. 14,055 from its sale.

Data on different subjects are made available to various users after pseudo coding the identification of the surveyed units by recoding in order to maintain confidentiality. Validated unit-level data are available on CD's and can be obtained from

The users are required to make a written request to Deputy Director General, Computer Centre, and remit the price along with a duly executed subject specific Undertaking in the specified format available at web site: http://mospi.gov.in.

. The amount is to be remitted by way of Bank Draft/ Cashiers Cheque drawn in favour of "Pay & Accounts Officer, M/o Statistics & P.I" payable at NEW DELHI. Overseas users/International Organisations will have to pay the price quoted in USD or GBP or its equivalent in INR at current rate. Enquiries relating to procurement of data can be made at:

Email : ddu01@nic.in.
Phone : (+91) 11 - 26107267
Tel/Fax : (+91)11 – 26160652

Additional information with regard to availability and prices for obtaining data relating to specific subjects is given below. The details of availability of unit-level data and their prices are also available on the ministry’s website.

Training is one of the main activities of the Centre. It has been conducting Electronic Data Processing (EDP) courses for various departments of the States/ UTs and the Central Government and international agencies since its inception. Over a period of time, the centre has trained a large number of officers in EDP. Besides, it has conducted six "Programmer" level courses and two "Training of Trainers" level courses in EDP for United Nations sponsored candidates from the ESCAP region countries under the United Nations Household Survey Capability Programme between 1983 and 1991.

EDP trainings for the ISS Probationers were also conducted up to 1995 on a continuous basis. The centre is conducting awareness programme under implementation of minimum agenda for e-governance, different modules of Information Technology (IT) courses for SSS officers and Non-ISS officers Level-I, Level-II, Level-II, Software packages for middle-level ISS officers, 'Software Engineering' course for ISS Probationers and in-house training courses. Training on specific modules on Oracle 9i, SPSS, Introduction to Data Warehouse, C++, Visual Basic.Net, Visual FoxPro, Internet, Web-designing & Networking etc. are also organised regularly. Training in Software Technology for ISS Probationers has again been entrusted to the Centre with effect from the batch inducted in 2002. Table 5 shows the number of courses conducted by the Centre.

Table 5 Courses Conducted During 1999-2000 to 2007-08
Year	Number of courses	Duration (weeks)
1999-2000	6	16
2000-2001	5	22
2001-2002	7	22
2002-2003	11	29
2003-2004	13	32
2004-2005	13	24 & 2 days
2005-2006	9	26
2006-2007	14	18 & 3 days
2007-2008	24	43

With much accomplished already, the Centre, in its endeavour to extend the scope, is at present developing a dynamic website consisting of National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics that would provide published and unpublished social and economic statistics in the required form and content to the general and specialised users, including decision-makers within and outside the government.

The Website of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has been designed and developed indigenously by the Centre. The responsibility of maintaining the website also rests with the Centre. To provide better access to the users, the Centre is planning to make major improvements, including making it a dynamic web-site. As per the special Data Dissemination Standards of the IMF, press releases on Consumer Price Index Numbers, Index of Industrial Production and various estimates of GDP are uploaded on the website on the day of release itself. The address of the website is http://mospi.gov.in. Recently, Hit counter, Suggestion box and Search engine have been added in the website.

All the latest publications of the Ministry are now available in full on the web site. The users can access and download these reports free of cost, after registration. The registration form with provision of entering the necessary details of a user is also available of the web site. This facility is available even to the users from outside the country. The Centre has uploaded more than 180 reports of the Ministry of Statistics and P.I., (CSO, NSSO and Programme Implementation) on the web-site. Summary report of Livestock Census 2003 conducted by Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying has also been uploaded on their request for free access by the users.

The Cabinet has approved creation of ‘National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics’ in the Ministry of Statistics and P.I. to enable the data users and general public to have an easy access to the published as well as the unpublished validated data from a single source. The responsibility of developing this has been entrusted to the Computer Centre.

The Centre has taken up the project of creation and maintenance of National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics from the data generated through sample surveys, censuses, enquiries etc. Under this project, the Centre will preserve data generated by various Central Ministries and Departments and Public Sector Undertakings on electronic media, organize the data in the form of databases, create data Warehouse and provide remote access facilities to end-users through a network.

A Direction committee under the chairmanship of Director General and CEO, NSSO with technical experts from Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi), IASRI, Reserve Bank of India, and National Informatics Centre, besides senior officers of the Ministry as members has been constituted to advise the Computer Centre on all aspects of setting up of Data Warehouse, including determination of appropriate configuration of hardware, selection of software, consultant and training of officers of the Computer Centre.

A Pilot Project on creation of a ‘Data Warehouse on Official Statistics’ is at present in progress. Under the guidance of the Direction Committee, COGNOS Software tools have been selected for the pilot project. For the pilot project, the Direction Committee has advised the Centre to work with the data sets of (i) Employment & Unemployment, (ii) Consumer Expenditure, (iii) Annual Survey of Industries, (iv) Consumer Price Index (Urban Non-manual Employees), and (v) Agriculture. Once the project is completed and Data Warehouse becomes operational, the users would have an easy access to the published and unpublished statistics as well as the validated data of different official agencies from a single outlet.

The objective of the National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics is to provide timely and credible social and economic statistics, to assist decision-making within and outside the government. With the help of historical data, if sufficient tools are available, it is possible to discern patterns, extract knowledge, and plan for the future. The users would be further benefited in the coming years, when the Computer Centre starts functioning as a data warehousing division not only of official statistics generated by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation but also of those generated by various other Central Ministries, State Governments and Public Sector Undertakings.

Table 1 Growing Number of Users of Unit-level Data and Total Revenue Realised
Year	No. of Users	Rupees	US $	UK ₤
1999-00	58	4,83,407	5,031	512
2000-01	52	5,11,576	3,194	952
2001-02	106	14,83,358	7,132	447
2002-03	114	10,37,147	13,683	93
2003-04	114	14,61,071	15,422	870
2004-05	133	20,40,289	17,972	417
2005-06	188	17,32,274	26,761	127
2006-07	229	26,30,344	43,429	351
2007-08	226	33,28,774	60,452	2,168
Total	1220	147,08,240	1,93,076	5,937

No. of Users

Revenue realised