Coming soon: Capex survey, economic census

To check the pulse of the economy, the government is set to initiate several enterprise-related surveys in the coming months. These include a survey to assess capital investments by the private sector as well as an economic census.

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) will roll out the Capital Expenditure or Capex Survey in October and has scheduled the Economic Census 2025-26 for next year. Additionally, it also plans to carry out a fresh Annual Survey of Industries, Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises as well as Annual Survey of Service Sector Enterprises in the next one year. These surveys are expected to give a comprehensive picture of the non-farm sector of the economy and help formulate better policies to address any lacunae.

The surveys are seen to be especially significant given that private investments are yet to fully recover while the government is also trying to boost India’s manufacturing sector in the hopes of more employment GENeration.

“A number of specific measures have been taken and will continue to be taken based on the data that we get from such surveys,” noted Saurabh Garg, Secretary, MoSPI on Thursday at a conference with various business associations and stakeholders on the enterprise surveys to be taken. He also sought cooperation from the industry associations to provide data correctly.

The capex survey, which will be starting soon, will help to determine investments being made over the next two years by the private sector and the expected demand, he noted. Similarly, the Economic Survey, starting next year, would provide the base for policy intervention and would also help understand what is happening at the ground level in terms of production, employment creation, and revenue generation from various sectors of the economy, he noted.  

The capex survey is based on a recommendation by the Parliamentary Standing Committee which had suggested that MoSPI should devise a methodology to capture capex data of the private sector. An official explained that the survey would include all non financial and financial corporation based on a list of active resident companies taken from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The NSSO has also started the preparatory exercise for the Economic Census 2025-26, which would be the eight such all India survey to measure the spread, penetration and structural changes in the non-agricultural sector of the economy. It would provide the total count of establishments in formal and informal sectors and number of workers working in them. It would be conducted through 0.8 million enumerators and 0.3 million supervisors who would be trained in the coming months. They will use their own smartphones or tablets to conduct the census.

Significantly, the results of the seventh economic census are yet to be released, which was carried out in 2019. Prior to that, the sixth economic census was conducted in 2013.