The idea of establishing GSA was first conceived in 1965 by Dr. V. V. Divatia, the Director of Bureau of Economics and Statistics and it was materialized by Late Prof. C. G. Khatri in 1969. Prof. Khatri was the first president of GSA. It took two long years to form the body of GSA and to make GSA’s presence felt by the students and the professors of the colleges and the universities as well as the statisticians working in the Government and the other research organizations. In the meantime, Dr. Divatia shifted to Mumbai as Statistical Advisor of Reserve Bank of India and the responsibilities of the functioning of GSA fell on the shoulders of the Department of Statistics, Gujarat University under the leadership of Dr. C. G. Khatri. With the sincere efforts of Dr. Khatri and his team members, the first Annual conference was held during January 1972 at Ahmedabad under the presidentship of Prof. G. R. Desai. The encouragement and support of Prof. G. R. Desai enforced the GSA to march ahead as a vibrant and active organization. With the proficient guidance and leadership of Prof. C. G, Khatri, Dr. V. V. Divatia, Dr. N. M. Bhatt, Prin. D. G. Vashi in the earlier years and others who followed solid foundation of GSA.

The main activity of the association is to hold conferences at different places of Gujarat and to arrange for intensive interaction in the form of workshop and training. The conferences provide an opportunity to the professors of different colleges and universities to exchange their views with the statisticians working in Government and research organizations where statistics is used and applied as a tool and keep themselves updated with the new trends taking place in theoretical and applied field of statistics. It also provides an opportunity to identify, encourage and motivate the areas of liaison between the academicians and individuals from industry. GSA also organize orientation courses for the teachers of secondary and higher secondary to equip them with the basic concept and methodology of Statistics. In order to encourage and involve students of different universities of Gujarat, many academic activities and competitions are carried out by the GSA.

The Association engages in generating interest in Statistics, professional development, retraining of users and producers of statistics providing sound information base to enhance application of Statistics in real world.

There are around 300 members across Gujarat from the field of academia, industry, government and more.

The association encourages research activities by publishing two research journals in statistics entitled “Gujarat Statistical Review” and “Sankhya Vignan”. GSR was first published under the editorship of Dr. C. G. Khatri in 1974. This journal becomes popular not only in India but also abroad due to the eminence of Dr. Khatri as its editor. After the death of Dr. Khatri in 1989, Dr. Sreehari of M. S. University took over as the editor of GSR. Journal continued up to 2009 and has been restarted in 2021 under the new name Gujarat Journal of Statistical and Data Sciences. Prof. Gosh is the Editor-in-chief of the journal.

The association is also publishing a very popular journal entitled “Sankhya Vignan” on regular basis (twice a year) under the editorship of respected Prof. B. B. Jani.

The GSA has set up Professor C. G. Khatri Memorial Trust to honour the prime services rendered by Dr. Khatri to the Statistical organization through his innovative and path breaking research. The trust promotes various activities which enhance the spirit of statistical creation in particular and scientific creation in general to which Prof. Khatri contributed significantly.