7th Economic Census

The government started off the 7th Economic Census from Tripura. It will be launched in other states and union territories in August and September.

• Economic Census (EC) is the complete count of all establishments/units located within the geographical boundaries of the country.
• Agriculture is not covered in Economic census (Only Growing of agricultural crops and plantations should not be counted as establishments for the purpose of this Economic Census).
• The establishment is a unit situated in a single location in which predominantly one kind of economic activity is carried out such that at least a part of the goods and/or services produced by the unit goes for sale (i.e. entire produce is not for sole consumption).

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• Which are the Bodies involved in carrying it out?
  • 7th Economic Census -2019 is being conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI).
  • MoSPI has partnered with Common Service Centres, CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as the implementing agency for 7th EC.
• Parent act: The data will be collected through door to door survey of each household and commercial establishment under the provisions of Collection of Statistics Act 2008.
• Timeline: The fieldwork is expected to be completed by December and the results at the national level is expected to be available by March 2020.
• History: Six Economic Censuses (EC) have been conducted till date: First EC (1977), Second EC (1980), Third EC (1990), Fourth EC (1998), Fifth EC (2005) and Sixth EC (2013).

Points to be Remembered:

1. The economic census is the only source of information on the significantly large unorganized sector in the country.
2. As per the last Economic Census conducted in 2013, there were 58.5 million establishments employing around 131 million workers.

Source: All India Radio