The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the key results of the survey on unincorporated non-agricultural enterprises (excluding construction) conducted in its 67th round survey during July 2010 - June 2011. The main objective of the survey was to get estimates of various economic and operational characteristics of enterprises in manufacturing, trade and other services sector (excluding construction) separately for Own Account Enterprises (OAEs) and Establishments at national and state level.

According to the NSSO survey manufacturing in the informal sector accounted for almost 15% of the overall manufacturing output of the economy.

The present report gives the key results based on the central sample consisting of 8296 villages in rural areas and 7602 urban blocks spread over all States and Union Territories except (i) interior villages of Nagaland situated beyond five kilometres of the bus route and (ii) villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain inaccessible throughout the year. Leh (Ladakh) and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir did not have any separate sample first-stage units (FSUs) for central sample. For these two districts, sample FSUs drawn as ‘state sample’ were considered as central sample.

Some salient findings of the survey are as follows:

a) Out of the estimated 5.77 crore unincorporated non-agricultural enterprises (excluding construction), about 54 per cent enterprises were located in rural areas and 46 per cent were located in urban areas.
b) At all India level, 30%, 36% and 34% enterprises were engaged in manufacturing, trading and other services sector respectively.
c) In rural India, these enterprises were more or less equally distributed (between 33 to 34 percent) among broad activity categories. In urban India, enterprises engaged in trading sector had the dominant share (38%) followed by other services sector (35.5%) and manufacturing sector (26.5%).
d) At all India level, the OAEs (Own Account Enterprises) (85%) had the dominant share of enterprises and also OAEs outnumbered establishments in all the three broad activity category namely Manufacturing (84%), Trade (86%) and Other Services (84%). The same pattern of dominance is observed in rural and urban areas also.
e) At all-India level, aggregate annual gross value added (GVA) was estimated as Rs.628,356 crores. The establishments contributed 55% to aggregate GVA. The overall GVA contribution of urban enterprises (68%) was much higher than rural enterprises (32%). Enterprises engaged in trade (39%) had contributed maximum to overall GVA followed by other services (36%) and manufacturing (25%). Share of OAEs in aggregate GVA was much higher in rural areas (63%) than that for urban areas (37%).

NSS enterprise surveys in the past have also covered unorganised non-agricultural enterprises, covering manufacturing, services and trade. About 90% of the Indian economy still comes under the ambit of informal economy and consequently a number of details are unknown.

The main aim of this latest survey is to address the issue of data availability and estimate the total number of enterprises, number of workers, gross value added per worker, fixed capital per enterprise, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) per enterprise, outstanding loan per enterprise, capital productivity (GVA/Fixed Capital) and other Operational/economic characteristics of enterprises.

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) (earlier known as National Sample Survey Organisation) under the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation was established in 1950, with the objective of obtaining comprehensive and continuing information relating to social, economic, demographic, industrial and agricultural statistics through sample surveys on countrywide basis.  It has been, therefore, instrumental in developing a strong database that has helped the Central as well as State Governments in development planning and policy formulations.