7.6 Working out a proper time-frame for follow-up Surveys of Economic Census

7.6.1 The Follow-up Enterprise Surveys (FuS) of the EC are periodically carried out by the MoS&PI to collect detailed information about employment, fixed assets, working capital, receipts, expenditure, gross value added, etc. from the enterprises. With the stabilisation of the system of regular flow of information by the SNMI and the DCA, the coverage of the FuS should be confined to the units or enterprises (other than those in the public sector) that are not included in the frame of the above two sources.
7.6.2 Gross value added per worker as per the FuS for different industry groups is required to estimate the share of the respective industry groups in GDP. Apart from this, estimates of important characteristics as per the FuS have got various other uses. It is, therefore, necessary that a proper time frame for covering various industry groups in the FuS is worked out keeping in view the requirements of the data users as well as availability of resources for carrying out the survey. Annexe 7.3 lists out the surveys devoted to Services Sector since the First Economic Census came into being in 1977.
7.6.3 The following important facts emerge from Annexe 7.3 :
- Activities of trade, hotels and restaurants as well as transport have been covered more or less regularly in the FuS;
- Construction activity has been covered only once, i.e. during 1999-2000;
- Activities of electricity (other than those pursued by the undertakings registered with the Central Electricity Authority), gas and water supply have not been covered in the FuS;
- Activities of storage and warehousing, and ‘other services’ were covered after a gap of 9 years and 8 years, respectively after the year 1983-84;
- Out of 6 broad activity groups (listed under Sl. No. 12, Annexe 7.3 ), all of them were covered in 1999-2000, 5 activity groups in each of 1979-80 and 1998-99, and 4 activity groups in 1983-84; and
- Certain survey years were devoted to only single activity groups (i.e. years 1985-86, 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93) as against some years being burdened with the coverage of a large number of activity groups.
7.6.4 The Commission recommends that:
- A proper time schedule for covering various activity groups with specified periodicity should be framed by the MoS&PI and strictly implemented for providing benchmark estimates required for national accounting.
- While finalising the said time schedule, efforts should be made to evenly group various activities among different survey years.