New Delhi, Oct 26 (IANS) The National Statistics Office (NSO) plans to conduct the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2027-28 from April 2027 to March 2028, aligning the survey period with the financial year, and will introduce new policy focused questions for better understanding of the unincorporated sector, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Monday.
The NSO will, for the first time, be introducing questions to capture gender-specific constraints faced by female entrepreneurs in operating and managing their establishments. These questions aim to improve the availability of information on the challenges women entrepreneurs face in the unincorporated sector.
Such information can support a better understanding of the constraints faced by female-led enterprises and provide a useful evidence-base for examining the factors affecting their business operations. It will also broaden the scope of information available from ASUSE for analysing the challenges of female entrepreneurs and for informing policy discussions relating to women’s participation in economic activity.
Additional questions will be included to capture the different sources of electricity used by establishments. This will provide a more comprehensive picture of the energy-use patterns of enterprises in the unincorporated sector. Information on electricity sources can help data users better understand the energy arrangements under which establishments operate and facilitate analysis of the operating environment of enterprises across different activities.
A new question will also be introduced to capture investment in fixed assets over a longer reference period than that covered in the existing schedule. This change is intended to provide a broader perspective on the investment trajectory of establishments.
Information covering a longer period can help in examining investment activity beyond the period captured by the existing question and can provide additional insights into the investment behaviour and business outlook of establishments. It will also enhance the analytical utility of ASUSE data for understanding investment patterns in the unincorporated sector.
The handloom and handicraft sector sits at the intersection of India’s unincorporated economy and traditional knowledge systems and availability of precise, granular and actionable data is indispensable for evidence-based policy making for this sector. In this context, at the request of the Ministry of Textiles, two questions will be included to identify handloom, power-loom and handicraft establishments. The proposed questions are intended to facilitate the identification of establishments engaged in these activities within the survey framework.
Taken together, these changes are intended to enhance the policy orientation of ASUSE and improve its responsiveness to the information needs of different Ministries and other data users.
In an important change to the survey calendar, the survey period for ASUSE is being shifted from the calendar year (January–December) to the financial year (April–March). Accordingly, ASUSE 2027–28 is proposed to be conducted from April 2027 to March 2028.
The change is intended to align the reference period of the survey with the financial year, as is done in other enterprise surveys like Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), Annual Survey of Incorporated Services Sector Enterprises (ASISSE), etc. and enhance the utility of ASUSE data for National Accounts purposes.
The initiatives introduced in earlier rounds of ASUSE to strengthen the quality, coverage and usefulness of the survey will continue in ASUSE 2027–28, the statement added.
–IANS
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