Government mulls creating national business register, may spend Rs 300 crore in economic census

NEW DELHI: The government plans to create a business enterprise register that will have details of all kind of businesses being run in the country as it gears up to conduct a nationwide economic census in 2019-20, a top official said Thursday.

"We propose to build a business enterprise register which can be regularly updated and utilised by all stakeholders– state and central government," Pravin Srivastava, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), said at a joint workshop with CSC e-Governance Services India.

MoSPI has roped in CSC e-governance, also known as CSC SPV, for conducting the seventh economic census.


"The strength that CSC SPV brings in is unique. The strength of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is the quality of data. Through this association, we are confident that as a country we should be able to collect timely data and create a National Asset which can be used for various policy-level interventions," Srivastava said.

CSC e-governance manages around 3 lakh common service centres across country which will be roped in for the survey programme. Each CSC will create five enumerators who will be trained and certified by CSC SPV for the economic survey.

"The enumerators once certified can be used for all kind of survey, even Census of India. This is the first time paper less survey will be conducted using technology. It will be completed within six months while earlier it use to take two years," Dinesh Tyagi, CEO, CSC SPV said.

Started in 1977, till date only six economic censuses have been done due to massive work involving in-depth survey and data compilation.

Tyagi said that as per estimate there are 20 crore households across the country and an enumerator is expected to be paid between Rs 15-20 per household which implies that even at conservative estimate government expenditure on the economic census will be upward of Rs 300 crore.

"With the use of technology any survey can be done in least possible time. I am confident that if CSCs are involved in Census of India than it can be done at frequency of every two years instead of 10 years frequency at present," Tyagi said.