PSG's Statistics golden jubilee year
G.K. Vasan, Union Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation (left), handing over a memento to M.M. Ramaswamy, former Head of the Department of Statistics (right), on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the department, at the PSG College of Arts and Science in the city on Friday. G. Rangaswamy, Managing Trustee, PSG Sons and Charities (second right), is in the picture.The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has decided to institute awards for outstanding research work in statistics, G.K. Vasan, Union Minister of State in charge of the Ministry, said here on Friday. Inaugurating the golden jubilee celebrations of the Department of Statistics of the PSG College of Arts and Science, he said that an international, national and young statistician award would be instituted. Also, fellowships would be given to research and doctoral scholars who were involved in applied and official statistics work.“India is a rising knowledge power. This knowledge should also be extended to include statistics. Usefulness of statistics should be appreciated beyond its every day use in the form of data, like opinion polls and cricket analysis. Effective planning, monitoring and implementation of various schemes will not be possible without official statistics,” Mr. Vasan said.
He said that a National Statistical Commission had been set up to provide the required support to the State official statistics systems.In order to make students into good statisticians, statistical data should be accurate, he said.“There is enormous scope and job opportunities are aplenty for professional statisticians today. In order to make use of such opportunities, students should be well trained in sectoral areas like banking, health, bio-informatics, quality assurance and data warehousing.”He also shared the need for improving universities and increasing their numbers. There would be an increase in number of Central Universities, Indian Institutes of Management and Indian Institutes of Information Technology in the next few years.
The biggest challenge before him was to obtain autonomy for all agencies dealing with official statistics and not only that of the Ministry, he said. “An indicator of a good democracy can be gauged from how independent its official statistics’ activities function,” he asserted.G. Rangaswamy, Managing Trustee, PSG Sons and Charities, said that India was a forerunner in the field of statistics. “Use of statistics has increased manifold. Near real-time data are available in all fields.”M.M. Ramaswamy, former Head of Department of Statistics, who had served the department for over 30 years, was felicitated by the Minister. M. Viswanathan, Principal in-charge, and R. Ethirajhulu, Head of Department, spoke.
