Recently Union Textile Minister Shankar Sinh Vaghela contradicted the statistical figures on textile export provided by the Directorate General of Commerce Intelligence Statistics (DGCIS). According to the news source, the minister has claimed that the statistical data provided by DGCIS was wrong. DGCIS is the principle authority and the pioneer official organization for collection, compilation and dissemination of India's trade statistics and commercial information. The figures released by the DGCIS had shown that textile exports from India had gone down during the first five months of the calendar year 2005 at Rs. 24,518.3 crore compared with Rs. 28,333.4 crore in the same period last year. This is a whopping 13.46 percent decline in exports at a time when the quota system is dismantled and industry is buoyant enough to pump in more money.
The minister has said that the textile export between January and July 2005 have increased 30-35 percent to USA whereas, to EU export increased around 20 percent. Since the DGCIS is the final authority of accumulating trade intelligence data with respect to foreign trade, it is a serious concern if the data provided by the organization
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| is incorrect. Several business decisions are taken based on the data provided by the organization everyday and incorrect data may lead to serious trouble. Data driven decision making is a prerequisite for good governance and companies are more and more dependent on data analysis to arrive at informed decisions today. The decline in textile export is a serious concern for everyone engaged with the industry, even the government who is taking a keen interest to push ahead the sector with industry friendly policy and schemes.
Though the authenticity of the data provided by DGCIS is questionable, there is no alternative source for obtaining authentic data on textile export. In fact, there is hardly any organization that has the authentic data on Indian textile industry. The main hurdle being fragmented nature of the industry and industry's fear to disclose any production or trade related data. Apart from the above, unfair trade practices prevailed at certain sections of the industry, prevents the traders to conceal actual data. However, time has come for the Textile Ministry to develop a system for collection of statistical data on all aspects of textile manufacturing and trading to make intelligent decisionsfor the betterment of the industry. 
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