New Standing Committee on Statistics holds its first meet

New Standing Committee on Statistics holds its first meet

Subject: Economy

Section: National Income

In News: Newly-formed Standing Committee on Statistics discusses the yet-to-be released results of the Annual Survey of Industries and Annual Survey of Unincorporated Enterprises in detail.

Key Points:

• Government recently renamed and expanded the scope of coverage of the Standing Committee on Economic Statistics (SCES) formed in December 2019 as Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS).
• The Committee on Statistics held its first meeting Saturday and discussed the yet-to-be released results of the Annual Survey of Industries and Annual Survey of Unincorporated Enterprises in detail.
• The committee, chaired by former Chief Statistician and former Chairman of the National Statistical Commission Pronab Sen, was constituted on July 13.
• The terms of reference (ToR) of the committee are to review the extant framework and to address the issues raised from time to time on the subject/ results/ methodology, etc. in addition to advising on survey methodology and on finalisation of survey results.
• The SCoS has 14 members, out of which there are four non-official members, nine official members and a member secretary.
• The new committee has been formed at a time when India’s statistical system has come under criticism, especially from three members of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM (EAC-PM) including Chairman Bibek Debroy and members Shamika Ravi and Sanjeev Sanyal.

 Annual Survey of Industries 2020-21:

• Discussions were mainly around the Annual Survey of Industries 2020-21 because the results are to be released soon.
• The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), which covers all factories registered under the Factories Act across the country.
• It is considered as an important source of industrial statistics of the registered organised manufacturing sector of the economy.
• The survey results for 2020-21 are expected to be released next week.

Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2021:

• There was also discussion on the results of the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Enterprises 2021, which has been pending for a long time even though it is ready.
• The first quarter results for it are showing a dip and then it bounces back up in subsequent quarters, so we are looking into it.
• As per a government release from 2019, the National Statistical Office (NSO) had proposed to conduct the first round of the Annual Survey on Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) during October 2019-March 2020 and next round of ASUSE in April 2020 till March 2021.
• The unincorporated sector is seen as important because of the large number of establishments in this sector and the magnitude of employment it provides to unskilled/ semi-skilled/ skilled persons along with its significant contribution to the Gross Domestic Product of the country.

Definition of unincorporated company:

An unincorporated company means any partnership firm whether registered or not under Indian Partnership Act, 1932, whose number of partners exceed 20 and exceed 10 in case of a banking business.

• Such an unincorporated company is also known as an illegal association. It does not include an HUF.