Survey soon to gather data from informal sector firms

India will soon begin work on the 2023-24 round of the Annual Survey on Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) even though the results of the previous surveys, dating back to four years, are yet to be released.

The aim of ASUSE, along with the Annual Survey of Service Sector Enterprises, is to fill the gap in national accounts reporting and present a better picture of the informal sector.

"The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is conducting training camps across its field offices to start work on the next round of the survey for 2023-24," a person familiar with the development told ET.


The survey captures the unincorporated non-agricultural enterprises in manufacturing, trade and other services in urban and rural areas. The informal sector has a large share in economic activity besides contributing strongly to employment generation.

"ASUSE will provide concrete data on the performance of the informal sector, which is currently not captured by the Annual Survey of Industries, and help in improving sub-national accounts reporting," the person cited above said. MoSPI has been facing flak from various quarters over the timeliness and quality of its data releases. A recent report by the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council said the ministry needs to focus on quality, and increasing quantity in government surveys would not address concerns on data quality. The ministry, however, believes that it will be able to publish the results of the 2023-24 survey faster, given that it has been carrying out computer-aided surveys.