Amid what it has called a “severe manpower shortage”, the Standing Committee on Finance has asked the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to fill at least half its vacant positions this year.
“The target of the Ministry should be to fill at least 50 per cent of the existing vacancies across all cadres within this year. It is also expected that the rest of the vacancies be filled up in a time-bound manner thereafter,” the committee said in a report presented in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
MoSPI — which has asked for an additional 2,594 junior and senior statistical officers — has consistently faced a shortage of officers, with the standing committee noting in its report that the number of vacancies in the ministry’s Field Operations Division — which is in charge of conducting surveys — rose from 614 in 2023 to 908 at the beginning of 2025. This shortage of manpower, the report said, “affects the quality of the data”.
“According to the Ministry, the same is being addressed through engaging contractual manpower and training them. The Committee is of the view that this is a stopgap arrangement and does not fully address the issue. The Committee therefore recommends the Ministry to deal with the issue of severe manpower shortage on priority basis and take concrete steps towards recruitment of regular field-based staff in a time-bound manner,” it added.
Back in June, Rao Inderjit Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of MoSPI, had told The Indian Express that 700 Junior Statistical Officers had been recruited for posting in different Regional Offices of the National Statistics Office through the Staff Selection Commission (SSC). “Moreover, survey-specific engagement of contractual staff is being made with multi-level training focusing more on the quality of the data,” Singh had added.
In response, MoSPI had told the standing committee in May that the SSC had provided a list of 725 candidates to fill the vacancies for Junior Statistical Officers for 2024, with appointment letters being issued to 663 candidates through the ‘Rozgar Mela’ held on April 26. The Staff Selection Committee has also been informed of 245 vacancies in the post of Junior Statistical Officers for 2025.
“Further, it is to mention that the proposal of 2nd Cadre Review of Subordinate Statistical Service (SSS) has been submitted to Dept. of Expenditure, wherein additional strength of 1,767 Junior Statistical Officers (JSOs) and 827 Senior Statistical Officers (SSOs) have been requested,” the standing committee’s report said, quoting MoSPI.
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The Standing Committee on Finance is chaired by Bhartruhari Mahtab, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Cuttack, Odisha. It looks at matters related to the finance, corporate affairs, and statistics ministries, as well as the NITI Aayog.
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