State plans economic census but faces manpower crunch

The Haryana government's plan to carry out an economic census next year is facing obstacles as the deployment of teachers for the task is not allowed as per the Right to Education Act.

The Haryana government's plan to carry out an economic census next year is facing obstacles as the deployment of teachers for the task is not allowed as per the Right to Education Act.

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The economic census, which involves collection of data on the number of enterprises in the state and people employed in them, is scheduled to be carried out between January and June 2012.

The authorities are in a quandary over the manpower needed for household survey and collection of economic activity-related data. The RTE Act says no teacher shall be deployed for any non-educational purposes other than the decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections.

Chief secretary Urvashi Gulati held a meeting with officials of finance and planning departments here on Tuesday to work out the modalities.

"The economic census will require a large number of trained enumerators. However, restrictions imposed on deployment of elementary teachers for such non-educational purposes are posing a problem," an official said. The government is looking at other options and collecting information regarding field staff of various departments. Piloted by the planning department, the sixth economic census will also include the services sector, neighbourhood retail shops and businesses run from home for the first time.

"All households will be covered to gather information on economic activity relating to organised and unorganised sectors. The census will be funded by the centre," said economic and statistical advisor RK Bishnoi.

The union ministry of statistics and programme implementation plans to compile a national registry of businesses based on the census data.