7th Economic Census to cover villages without economic activity

NEW DELHI: The upcoming economic census will identify villages with no economic activity, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has said.

“Villages with no economic activity also will be identified for the policy purposes,” the ministry said in the vision document for the census.

The Seventh Economic Census will be held this year after a gap of five years. The census, conducted by MoSPI, would give a complete count of all economic units in the country. The entire field work is proposed to be completed during June 2019 to September 2019 across all states and union territories. National level provisional results are planned to be released by December.


A National Business Register and Unique Identification Code framework including legal framework for establishments are the proposed deliverables of the exercise.

The integration of data from platforms such as GSTN, MCA-21, EPFO and ESIC is also proposed.

As per the last Economic Census conducted in 2013, there were 58.5 million establishments employing around 131 million workers.

Purpose

The upcoming census will organise larger units into a dynamic register, known as ‘Business Register’ which can be linked with existing databases at the central and state government levels.

The other components (unorganized or informal sector) will be organized into location-wise information, to be used as frame for conducting periodic sample surveys for further studies.

“It is also proposed to have in place a threshold turnover in monetary terms for such households/ establishments for inclusion in the coverage of the census,” the ministry said.

It will list of all establishments, tagged by geographical location up to village/ward level for local level planning purposes and provide information on number of workers working in establishments (which are under operation), activity-wise and area-wise.

Governance

The ministry has recommended setting up a Steering Committee under MoSPI secretary to guide on logistics, monitoring and overall implementation of the census. The committee will include representatives from various ministries such as electronics and information technology, corporate affairs, labour and employment, NITI Aayog and Registrar General of India.

Besides, task group comprising representatives from NCAER, EPIC-India, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, labour and employment ministry, GST Network, Reserve Bank of India and NITI Aayog, will look at technical modalities related to the conduct of the census.