Professor Kiran Pandya from Gujarat appointed in National Statistical Commission
Appointed as Part Time Member and first ever member from Gujarat
Professor Kiran Pandya, a native of Sigam (Bharuch District) is appointed as a Part-Time member of the National Statistical Commission by the Government of India. Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC ) made his selection and appoints chairman and three part time members in the board. This is for the first time a selection from Gujarat is there in the commission.
National Statistical Commission is an advisory body consisting of four members. The commission advises in all matters related to statistics needed for policy formulation by different departments and ministry. The appointments committee of the cabinet has approved the selection of chairman and members in the National Statistical Commission. Prof. Bimal Roy Head R.C. Bose Centre of Cryptology and Security, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata as Chairman for the period of three years or until further orders. Dr. Kiran Pandya Professor and Head Department of Human Resources Development Veer Narmad South Gujarat University Surat as Part Time Member, Pulak Ghosh Professor IIM Bangalore Data Centre and Analytics Lab as Part Time Member and Dr. Gurucharan Manna Professor, Institute of Human Development, IHD and Senior Advisor, NCAER as Part Time Member.
[gallery size="full" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="67270,67271,67272"]
"Its more of a responsibility for me and I am happy to get the appointment in my areas of interest. My appointment is in the second category of Social environment statistical data collection in fields of population, labour, health, education, employment and environment. We already work in Health and education statistics and under District Human Development Report completed Tapi and Surat districts," said Pandya.
Prof. Kiran Pandya obtained M.Phil. degree from the University of Poona, for which he studied at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. He also holds first class master’s degree in economics from the M S University of Baroda. He was awarded a PhD by the University of Sussex (UK). The Commonwealth Commission in UK awarded him the Academic Staff scholarship to pursue his doctoral studies. Currently, he is working as a professor and head of the Department of Human Resource Development, Veer Narmada South Gujarat University, Surat. He has more than 35 years of teaching and research experience.
He has trained students in economics, statistics, econometrics and research methodology and regularly organized training programmes and workshops in these areas. He has worked on many research projects funded by the Government, ICSSR and corporates. Two of his major research works were preparation of the District Human Development Reports of Surat and Tapi districts of Gujarat (India). The reports were to be prepared on behalf of the Government to give them an insight into decentralized planning with an objective to foster development of the districts. He is carrying out ICSSR-sponsored research project as Principal Co-ordinator.
Prof Pandya has published number of papers in reputed national and international journals and is also on the editorial board of few journals. He has co-authored a book on Statistical Analysis using SPSS with Dr Smruti Bulsari. He has also co-authored books in Gujarati in area of Quantitative Methods and SPSS.
In future he wants the involvement of educational institutions in data collection. "We see school teachers are assigned the work in census work. But i am planning to start a model on experimental basis to involve the Post Graduate departments of Statistics and Economics in the work. The teachers and students can get the field experience which they normally not get inside the classrooms. If succeed we can then spread the model to other districts," said Pandya.
