What is the significance of CoCSSO?

• The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) organised the 29th Conference of Central and State Statistical Organisations (CoCSSO) in Chandigarh on September 25 and 26.

• The conference serves as a major forum for coordination between central and state statistical agencies, with the objective of ensuring reliable, timely, and credible statistics for planners, policymakers, and the public to support evidence-based decision-making. 

• The theme of the conference was ‘Strengthening Local Level Governance’, focusing on enhancing collaboration between central and state statistical departments to improve the quality and availability of local-level data which is vital for effective governance and evidence-based policy formulation.

• The conference brought together around 350 participants from state departments, central ministries, experts from various other national and international organisations, UN agencies and other stakeholders to deliberate on strengthening statistical systems for evidence-based governance and achieving the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’.

• In line with digital innovation being undertaken at MoSPI, the PAIMANA (Project Assessment Infrastructure Monitoring and Analytics for Nation Building) portal was introduced for enhanced monitoring of central sector infrastructure projects.

Conference of Central and State Statistical Organisations (CoCSSO)

• As a part of the mechanism set up by the government for coordinating the activities in the field of statistics in different states/UTs and central ministries/departments, the ministry organises Conference of Central and State Statistical Organisations (CoCSSO) every year. 

• This is a major forum for discussing important statistical issues by the central and state statistical agencies with the objective of putting in coordinated efforts for availability of reliable and timely statistics to planners and policy makers for informed decision making and good governance.

• It provides an institutional platform for discussion and improved coordination between the central and state statistical organisations for enhancing the efficiency of the Indian statistical system in a collaborative approach.

• It was organised for the first time in 1971.

• Earlier it was supposed to be organised once every two years. Keeping in view the usefulness of the Conference, it has now been decided to have it every year.

Objectives of CoCSSO:

• To provide a platform for discussion on the statistical issues of common interest to the central and state statistical organisations. 

• To provide an overall perspective to the development of statistical system and to make recommendations/suggestions on issues having bearing on the development of the statistical system. 

• To solve the technical issues relating to statistics. 

• To set up working groups on specific issues/tasks relating to official statistics. 

• To provide guidelines in the collection of statistics and maintenance of statistical standards and quality, besides uniformity in statistical standards. 

• To consider the Action Taken Report of the follow up action on the recommendations of the previous meetings.  

• To review the role of the statistical advisers in the central and states/UT governments.