Sibanthi Padmanabha/DHNS

• According to District Statistics Officer K Ramesh Upadhya, only one person is looking after statistics in the entire district.

Mangalore, Jul 21: May it be success or failure, profit or loss; one certainly goes for statistics, in order to substantiate the situation with authenticity. From agriculture to economy, population to health, climate to defence, any field should be explained with statistics if it should be perceived as ‘reliable’.

There is a separate department to compile and present all statistics related to various departments and the information furnished by it is considered authentic.

“But the question is how many of the officials and ministers have thought of the true tale behind this Statistics Department,” questions an official.

“The District Statistics Department has a severe shortage of staff for the past several years, and the government is yet to respond to repeated pleas for more staff,” according to sources. The response from the government was strange, the sources pointed out.

According to District Statistics Officer K Ramesh Upadhya, only one person is looking after statistics in the entire district. As against the required six enumerators and 10 statistical inspectors, only one ‘available’ enumerator has been posted to compile the statistics of Belthangady and Puttur taluks. Others are done by village accountants (VAs) and some other agencies!

Even the office of the District Statistical Officer is worried over the lack of technical staff and the situation will turn worse soon. Of the four Assistant Statistical Officers (ASOs) in the office, one is going to retire in September, one has got promotion, while another one is on deputation to complete his PhD. Only one ASO will have to look into all responsibilities within two months. According to sources, typists in the office need to substitute the works of the vacant posts.

Heavy work

Apart from co-ordinating, supervising and compiling statistics and imparting training to VAs, the Department is usually asked to conduct various surveys in connection with agriculture, economy, crop estimation, crop insurance, fruits and vegetable, minor irrigation and so on, besides its major concentration on registering births and deaths.

The Department is also asked to file the Annual Season and Crop Report and regular rain reports. To add to their existing woes, the district administration has recently asked the Department to furnish rain reports on a daily basis, instead of the present weekly information, according to sources. The sources also said the State Finance Department has recently refused to give green signal to appoint 272 staff for the Statistics department across Karnataka.

According to Upadhya, the quality of the data would definitely suffer if the staff shortage continued.