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Despite various efforts and initiatives, the quality of the country's national statistics remains a matter of grave concern and controversy. It is disheartening to note that a significant portion of the statistics provided by the national statistical agency, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), in particular, lacks adequate trustworthiness. Several factors contribute to the disappointing situation regarding national data and statistics.
Over the decades, successive governments have undertaken several measures to improve the data collection and data processing system to generate a reliable national statistics. Nevertheless, in many cases, such measures were insufficient and inefficient, resulting in a compromise in the quality of data and statistics. A lack of proper budget and trained human resources, coupled with flawed planning and bureaucratic tangles, are the main reasons for such compromises.
Moreover, there is always an allegation that governments often do not want to provide quality statistics that may expose the gap between real and claimed socio-economic progress of the country. Data manipulation to portray a more favourable picture of development has been common practice among most governments. The situation, however, was aggravated during the now-ousted Hasina regime, when some key features of national statistics were distorted. For instance, the then planning minister, AHM Mustafa Kamal, decided to disclose inflation statistics quarterly in 2017, deviating from the long-standing tradition of monthly data release. The move sparked criticism as economists, experts, and journalists questioned the motive behind such a decision. Although the autocratic regime initially rejected the criticism, it later resumed the practice of releasing monthly inflation statistics.
It is worth noting that BBS was established in 1974 by merging four separate statistical offices in the country. Those were the Bureau of Statistics under the Ministry of Planning, the Agricultural Statistics Bureau and the Agricultural Census Commission under the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Population Census Commission under the Ministry of Home Affairs. In 1975, the Statistics Division was established under the Ministry of Planning. However, in 2002, the division was dissolved, and a sub-division was formed. In 2010, the division was re-established, and in 2012, it was renamed as the Statistics and Informatics Division under the planning ministry. Thus, BBS came under the Statistics and Informatics Division. BBS has statistical offices in eight divisional cities, 64 district statistical offices, and 492 upazila statistical offices across the country.
During its journey of five decades, BBS has gone through a series of challenges and has been unable to overcome some of those, compelling the national statistical agency to deliver output that is not optimal in many cases.
The Statistical Capacity Index, prepared using World Bank data, showed that Bangladesh scored 70.8 against a global average of 73.5, indicating that the availability of economic resources in the country's national statistics office is good. Nevertheless, the country's data quality is poor due to poor economic governance. In 2014, again, Bangladesh scored 80 out of 100 in the Statistical Capacity Indicator, prepared by the World Bank. The score, however, declined to 62 in 2018 and further to 60 in 2020, reflecting a fall in data quality.
Against the backdrop, in May of this year, the Yunus-led interim government established an eight-member expert Task Force on Strengthening BBS Data Quality, Transparency, and Access. The formation of a task force is a welcome step as it is an initiative responding to the growing national and international demand for credible, accessible, and high-quality statistics to guide policymaking, investment, and development planning. Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, Executive Chairman of PPRC, is leading the task force.
The task force has already held several consultations with BBS staff and various stakeholders to identify the structural weaknesses and obstacles, as well as the expected outputs. A significant problem, already identified, is that the bureau is suffering from a lack of necessary human resources, as around 50 per cent of the posts are still vacant. The national budget for FY26 doesn't provide any special attention in this connection.
The budgetary allocation for BBS has declined in FY26 compared to FY25, both in the proposed and revised terms. The allocated budget for the Statistics and Informatics Division was Tk 6.62 billion in FY25, increasing to Tk 7.03 billion in the revised budget for the year. In FY26, the proposed budget for the division came down to Tk 4.67 billion. Almost the entire amount allocated for the division is for BBS. Reasons behind the lower allocation may be a lack of capacity to utilise the allocated resource on time or misappropriation of budget in some cases.
A lack of proper budgeting leads the BBS to undertake project-based works, deviating it from its core functions. The dependence on donor funding makes many important surveys irregular, and donor agencies have additional access to complete data on the particular areas. Although some projects are government-funded, the project-based approach discourages the long-term sustainability of the work. Those who work on the projects receive additional remuneration in addition to their regular salaries. Therefore, it sometimes creates an unhealthy competition among BBS staffers to be involved in a project. Therefore, what is necessary is to enhance budgetary allocation and gradually reduce project-based work.
Although BBS has a vast amount of data, it is not accessible to all due to data security concerns. Nevertheless, a significant portion is open to the public, although the data sharing mechanism is still not efficient. For researchers, business professionals, journalists, teachers, and students, obtaining the desired data can be challenging. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the current BBS website using various online tools, such as Datawrapper, to extract data efficiently. Synchronisation of data with other national organisations, like the Bangladesh Bank, is also necessary.
The list of tasks to strengthen data quality, transparency, and access is long, and it requires strong and continuous support from the government without any political or bureaucratic intervention. Unfortunately, political governments in the past did not show a strong willingness to enhance the quality of national statistics. They also paid less attention to developing BBS as an effective autonomous body of statisticians and relevant professionals for the greater interests of the country.
BBS can be a unique organisation for those engaged in data-related professions who want to develop their career paths, as data will become an increasingly critical instrument in the coming days. The nations will engage in a stiff competition to access the data of others, enriching their own data storage and generating a good quality of comprehensive statistics. Bangladesh needs to start work in this direction by reforming the national statistical agency.