The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has launched a Periodic Labour Force Survey that which will provide quarterly labour and employment data for urban India and annual data for rural India.
Launched in April 2017, this survey will supersede the earlier system where such data was available only every five years, said DV Sadananda Gowda, the Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The Statistics Ministry is also preparing to revise the base year of national accounts from 2011-12 to 2017-18, given the completion of the household consumer expenditure survey and the labour force survey at the end of 2018.
“My ministry has launched the Periodic Labour Force Survey from April 2017,” Mr Gowda announced at a press conference in Delhi. “We have tried this for the first time in India and it would supply data not only about the formal sector, but also about the informal sector.”
“The data will be collected from large and small enterprises and so we will be able to measure informal sector activity as well. The first release of data will be in December 2018, after we have collected a year’s worth of data,” said Chief Statistician of India, TCA Anant.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey will also incorporate a Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) method, with field operators using tablets to enter the data. This would generate more accurate and timely information, Mr Gowda said.
“The preparatory work for the huge exercise of revising the base year of National Accounts statistics to 2017-18 has already been started,” Mr Gowda added.
“The base year can be changed once the results of the employment survey and household consumer expenditure survey come out,” Mr Anant said. “Those are critical inputs in the base revision.”
The Ministry of Statistics is also developing a fact sheet on the Indian economy, incorporating inputs from all important ministries on 100 indicators. It is also considering an Annual Survey of Services, along the lines of the Annual Survey of Industries already being carried out, Mr Gowda said.
