secretary of state ordered the governor - general in council to prepare a “ comprehensive and coordinated scheme of statistical survey ” for each of the twelve great provinces of the then british india and dr. w. w. hunter was appointed as director - general of statistics in india in 1869, who can perhaps be regarded as the original precursor to the chief statistician of india today. the statistical account of bengal ( the present bangladesh, west bengal, bihar and orissa ) was published in 20 volumes. for each district there were details on topographical data, ethnic pisions and creeds, agricultural situation, commerce, working of district administration and finally the sanitary and health aspects. although censuses of calcutta were undertaken in the year 1822 and in 1847, the operation of a decennial census for the whole country started in 1881 and is continuing ever since. the report on the census of british india taken in 1881 was published in three volumes. the need for timely and accurate collection of agricultural data was felt by the indian famine commission and agricultural departments were organised in various provinces which resulted in the publication of “ agricultural statistics of british india ” in 1886. to scrutinise and summarise the data collected by the agricultural departments, a statistical bureau was formed at the centre in 1895 to coordinate the agricultural, foreign trade, prices, wages and industrial statistics. during 1905, a separate body directorate general of commercial intelligence and statistics ( dgci & s ) was constituted to collect / publish commercial and trade statistics and to help trade and business. the first issue of indian trade journal was released in 1906 and first price statistics based on a survey was released in 1910. the economic enquiry committee set up in 1925 under the chairmanship of dr. visweswarayya and more importantly the bowley - robertson committee set up later in 1934, were mainly responsible for the government ’ s decision to set up an inter - departmental committee with the economic adviser to the government of india as the chairman. the inter - departmental committee recommended the formation of a central statistical office for coordination, institution of a statistical cadre, establishment of state bureaus at state head quarters and maintenance of important statistics for the entire country. architect of modern statistical methods in the indian subcontinent the developments in statistics that took place between 1930 and 1960 are quite remarkable and in some sense unique. no other discipline in india recorded such growth and development during the same period in india. there were several important ingredients. in statistics, unlike other disciplines, india was not a

##s food and energy prices rose to 6. 3 percent as of may. put differently, there is the risk that the deterioration in pricing behavior might spread to other sectors of the economy. this situation necessitates a measured, gradual and predictable phase of monetary tightening. the measured and gradual nature of monetary tightening is important in face of an already moderating economic growth while having a monetary tightening that is predictable is important to prevent undesired fluctuations in financial markets. dear guests, i would like to stress once more. macro - economic stability is one of the key inputs of sustainable economic growth. macro - economic stability cannot co - exist with high inflation. countries that concede higher inflation for the pursuit of economic growth in the short - term are bound to be deprived of both in the medium - term. policies to attain price stability will entail a cost in the short - term. we need to pay this cost to achieve price stability and ensure sustainable and high growth rates. if we hesitate today and step back from our ultimate target of price stability, we will still face similar problems in the near future, but possibly in worse circumstances. in conclusion, disinflation in turkey is an on - going process. the disinflation process was disrupted over the past two years due to the extraordinary effects of supply side shocks and inflation targets were overshot considerably. in this environment, the central bank of turkey has made necessary assessments and reacted accordingly. within the framework of the monetary policy adopted recently, the target has been revised. this is our response to the question of to what extent the central bank of turkey may allow for supply side shocks. monetary tightening consistent with the target constitutes the second pillar of this policy. if we foresee any deviation of inflation outlook from the target, the necessary policy action will be taken without any hesitation or delay. as you remember, i started my speech with the words of charles stamp, former governor of the bank of england : “ it is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities. ” the central bank of the republic of turkey will not dodge its responsibilities. in this environment of massive global challenges, we perceive the new inflation targets as attainable. all the existing monetary policy tools in hand will be utilized decisively and without any hesitation in order to attain these targets. while concluding my speech, i would like to extend my thanks to the turkish economic association and the international economic association, and all other institutions and individuals who