India's economy has already revived, moving well beyond the stage of "green shoots," according to Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, PK Mishra. Speaking at the 20th National Statistics Day celebrations in New Delhi on Monday, Mishra pointed to the latest quarterly and annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data as evidence of the recovery.
"It has already revived. You see, the last growth data, the last quarterly data, the annual data, the GDP has certainly revived," Mishra told ANI. When asked whether the economy was witnessing "green shoots," he replied, "Yes, green shoots, it is already revived, much better than green shoots."
Data-Driven Vision for Viksit Bharat
Mishra emphasized the importance of evidence-based policymaking, noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently stressed that the vision of Viksit Bharat should be driven by data and measurable outcomes. "Our Prime Minister has said that we need to have data-based decision-making. So for Viksit Bharat, whatever efforts we make, whatever initiatives we take, whatever schemes we work out, it should be evidence-based, it should be data-driven. To use data, we need to measure it, measure the indicators and measure the progress. That is how Viksit Bharat is to be measured," he said.
Unlocking Administrative Data Potential
Speaking about this year's Statistics Day theme, "Unlocking the Potential of Administrative Data for Decision-Making," Mishra highlighted that India now has access to large volumes of administrative data generated by government departments, various ministries, and the country's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). He explained that the focus is on standardizing such data, making it compatible across systems, and improving its quality so that it becomes trusted, comprehensive, and compatible with traditional survey data, while expanding the scope of official statistics.
"Administrative data now, we have a lot of departments, a lot of initiatives, and we have a huge Digital Public Infrastructure. A lot of data is generated by our digital activities. Various ministries have also generated a lot of data. The question is how to use this potential, how to standardise it, how to make it compatible with each other, how to derive inferences from the data and how to improve the data so that it is trusted, comprehensive and compatible with the earlier survey data," he said.
Role of Artificial Intelligence
Highlighting the role of emerging technologies, Mishra said Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers significant opportunities to make decision-making more comprehensive through better use of data. However, he stressed that India must simultaneously develop the human capability to effectively use AI and ensure that the results generated by such technologies are properly validated. "AI has a lot of scope. It gives a lot of opportunities to use data to make our decisions more comprehensive. At the same time, we need to develop the human capability to use AI and also ensure that whatever the results are, they are validated," Mishra added.
