The Union government has unveiled a new draft bill that aims to bring sweeping changes to the iconic Indian Statistical Institute, a 94-year-old centre that helped design some of India’s earliest data-driven economic policies during the planning era, including the national sample surveys.
The Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation uploaded the draft “The Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2025” on Friday, seeking public consultations on a spate of structural changes and a new executive authority.
The ISI was founded in 1931 by PC Mahalanobis, a pioneer statistician and member of the erstwhile planning commission. His “Mahalanobis model”, a statistical framework, was pretty much the bedrock of India’s early industrialisation that stressed heavy state-led capital investments to substitute for imports.
The ministry’s pro forma for public comments said the draft bill aimed at fostering “excellence” and “establishing clear institutional structures, streamlining decision-making, and upholding integrity in leadership and administration”.
In 2020, the Modi government had constituted the 4th review committee led by scientist RA Mashelkar to “reimagine and reinvent” the ISI ahead of 2031, its centenary year.
The draft bill, in its preamble, states that the legislation will declare the ISI as an institution of national importance and convert it from a registered society to a “statutory body corporate”, paving the way for a new incorporation. Once enacted, it will replace the Indian Statistical Institute Act, 1959. Section 3 of the 1959 Act too similarly states that the ISI is a nationally important institution.
{{/usCountry}}The draft bill, in its preamble, states that the legislation will declare the ISI as an institution of national importance and convert it from a registered society to a “statutory body corporate”, paving the way for a new incorporation. Once enacted, it will replace the Indian Statistical Institute Act, 1959. Section 3 of the 1959 Act too similarly states that the ISI is a nationally important institution.
{{/usCountry}}Among key new provisions, Section 15 of the draft provides for a Board of Governance, which will carry out all executive functions at the ISI. The board will be headed by a chairperson, who will be nominated by the Visitor on the “recommendation of the central government”. Currently, the ISI Council is the governing body of the institute.
The ISI did not have a fixed number of faculty positions or structure laid down and this has been “seriously problematic”, said Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and former chairman of the National Statistical Commission.
“This flexibility meant that the ISI, for a long time, got away with not fully adhering to our reservation system,” Sen said, adding that corrective steps were taken later. According to Sen, the new law should address these structural issues.
To be sure, the ISI currently has a reservation policy devised by the institution to conform to the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006.