NSSO survey to cover entire nation for first time

NEW DELHI: No survey official has visited the village of Phisami, not far from India's border with Myanmar in Nagaland, or parts of the Andaman and Nicobar islands as the sheer remoteness of these areas made them off limits for enumerators.

This will change in July, when the 69th round of the National Sample Survey Organization's ( NSSO) enumeration of socio-economic indicators gets underway as all of India will be covered for the first time after entire Jammu and Kashmir was brought under the survey map last year.

In the case of Nagaland, NSSO will relax a rule not to cover villages that lie more than 5km beyond a bus route on an experimental basis to push its coverage to areas that it have not been on its map previously. This will mean Phisami, with a population of some 1,200 people, could receive visitors. As could Tsutapella and Tsaphimi villages.

"In case of rural sectors of Nagaland and Andaman and Nicobar islands, the coverage has been extended to the entire state or UT from this round...one separate stratum will be formed for all interior and inaccessible villages not covered in previous rounds," a note on the 69th round states.

Official sources said some parts of J&K could not be covered due to logistics as also unsettled security conditions until a decision was taken during last year's survey of household consumer expenditure to push into districts largely outside the NSSO net.

Success in covering all parts of J&K meant that the sample, although random and intended to account for only a fraction of habitations, was more complete than has been the case before. Similar was the case with Andaman islands, where some areas were earlier simply ruled out of the survey sample.

Nagaland was the last frontier both in terms of the logistical challenge as also presence of militant groups. With the security situation improving, NSSO is prepared to dispatch surveyors to villages that often have a limited, self-sufficient agrarian economy.

Previous surveys have been incomplete with regard to certain Union Territories and states as parts of Leh and Kargil in J&K and villages in Nagaland and Andaman and Nicobar were seen to be inaccessible throughout the year. Parts of Doda, Poonch and Rajouri were outside the surveys.

This time, the survey will examine a range of indicators like size and state of houses, drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and slums.