The unintended consequences of cooking data.

"The unintended consequences of good policies cannot be foreseen without systems thinking," wrote Arun Maira. Farmers in Punjab have been burning rice stubble since the 1980s but rice needs a lot of water, so "alarmed by by the impact thirsty paddy growth was having on dwindling ground water resources, the government passed the Preservation of Subsoil Water Act in 2009", forcing farmers to postpone planting of rice by one month. This meant that the burning of stubble was also postponed by one month, which coincided with the onset of autumn in Delhi with a change of wind direction. The smoke from stubble burning has turned Delhi into the most polluted city in the world. But, perhaps, we can go further back in time and blame Bhakra Dam, the first big infrastructure project after independence, which provided extra water for irrigation and encouraged farmers in Punjab to shift to rice cultivation. In dry Rajasthan, girls used to stay out of school to help their mothers in collecting water. With improved water supply more girls joined schools, but have started dropping out again, coinciding with the central government campaign to stop open defecation in India. The government has built over 90 million toilets in homes. Toilets need water, so girls in Rajasthan are dropping out of school to collect the increased requirement for water. When industries complained of a lack of trained youth 15 years back, the government started a training program to impart skills to 500 million people. Millions have been trained under the Skill India Mission. Unfortunately, that has coincided with a slowing in the economy, resulting in "unemployment of people with vocational education has gone up between 2011-12 and 2017-18, from 18.5% to 33.0%; of youth with technical degrees, from 18.8% to 37.3%; and of graduates. from from 19.2% to 35.8%". This is embarrassing so the employment survey report by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) was suppressed. The unintended consequence of that was the public resignation of the two remaining independent members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC). Rising unemployment led to decrease in consumption, so the government had to junk a report on private consumption expenditure from the National Statistical Office (NSO) which showed that consumption expenditure in rural areas fell from Rs 1,587 per person per month (ppm) in 2014 to Rs 1,524 ppm in 2017-18, while in urban areas it fell from Rs 2,926 ppm in 2014 to Rs 2,909 in 2017-18, wrote Prof Himanshu. The unintended consequence of suppressing that report is that the government cannot brag about "the sharp decline in inequality reported in the second part of the article based on the leaked report". The report maybe slightly flawed because the survey began just after demonetization in 2016 which severely affected the informal sector. Trouble is, the government refuses to acknowledge the malign effects of demonetization by cooking up the GDP back series data. Perhaps, the government should get rid of all statisticians and get a chef to report data. He will know how to make it tasty.