India's statistical system has been plagued by issues of quality and credibility for years, but under the leadership of Saurabh Garg, a veteran civil servant, things are slowly changing. Garg, who was appointed as the top official at the statistics ministry in 2024, has been working to improve the system by creating a calendar of data releases, clearing the backlog of pending surveys, and speeding up the pace of data-gathering and publication.
His efforts have been praised by experts, who note that he has the right credentials and a non-ideological approach. However, the praise being heaped upon him is also a sign of a deeper problem with how India is run. Despite nearly eight decades of independence, a population of 1.45bn people, and an economy that is growing ever more sophisticated, administrative capacity is a fraction of what the country needs.
The 'steel frame' of governance, as the elite civil service is sometimes known, is made up of just 5,577 officers, which has grown by less than 1,100 in the past 15 years. Britain, whose population is a 20th of India's, has over 7,500 senior civil servants. This means that depth of talent is a problem, and Indian bureaucracy can be an ad-hoc affair that relies more on individual capability than established process.
