The Niti Aayog on Thursday stepped in to clarify on the survey that claimed India’s unemployment rate rose to a 45-year high during 2017-2018, calling it a draft report and that some parts of the jobs data was still being processed. The data is being collected in a new manner. That is the reason why the centre did not release the report, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said at a presser, saying that it was not right to publish the report in an incomplete manner.The Niti panel justifying its action further said that 1-12% nominal economic growth can’t happen if employment didn’t grow. The entire data will be shared by March, said the panel.Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant recounted the major problems facing our economy. Lack of good quality jobs and a large informal sector is adding to our economic woes stated Kant.The Business Standard report delivered a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi just months before what is expected to be a closely fought general election.The assessment by the National Sample Survey Office conducted between July 2017-June 2018, showed the unemployment rate stood at 6.1 percent, the highest since 1972-73, the newspaper reported.The report said that joblessness stood at 7.8 percent in urban areas compared with 5.3 parts in the countryside.The data is significant because this was the first comprehensive assessment of India’s employment situation conducted after Modi’s decision in November 2016 to withdraw most of the country’s banknotes from circulation overnight, the report said.The government declined to confirm or deny the report.”We have not released the report. I do not want to comment on it,” Pravin Srivastava, India’s chief statistician told Reuters.The gloomy jobs data could be awkward for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to explain with a general election looming and opinion polls already showing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party would be unlikely to keep its parliamentary majority.Modi came to power in 2014 promising to galvanise the economy, and boost employment prospects for the millions of young Indians entering the jobs market each year.But, while India’s economy has been expanding by 7 percent plus annually — the fastest pace among major economies — its uneven growth has meant that there are not enough new jobs to keep pace. And critics say the government’s claims of economic success have sounded increasingly hollow.A political controversy over the survey erupted after the acting chairman and another member of the body that reviewed the jobs data resigned saying there was delay in its release.The head of the government-funded National Statistical Commission P.C. Mohanan said on Wednesday that he and colleague J. Meenakshi were unhappy at the non-publication of jobs data that had been due for release in December. He alleged interference by other state agencies over backdated GDP data.A statistics ministry official said the NSSO had submitted the report, but it was up to the government to decide when it should be released.But another senior official, dealing with data, said the government was delaying the release of the survey as the findings were so dismal, and there were plans to incorporate data on persons added in the social security network that could help improve the overall picture.Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India said unemployment in the India has been rising since 2012 but the attempts to suppress the publication of data was not a solution.”It will only create more suspicion about the intentions of the government,” he said.The last report published by the statistics ministry had shown that the unemployment rate rose to 5.0 percent in 2015/16 from 4.9 percent in the previous year and 4.0 percent in 2012/13.The unemployment among males stood at 4.3 percent and 8.7 percent among women in 2015/16, the government data showed.Earlier this month, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a leading independent think-tank, said the country lost as many as 11 million jobs last year.