Data collection for 7th Economic Census begins in Gurugram

On Friday, the survey began with the colonies near Railway Road in the city.

The data collection for the 7th Economic Census officially began in the state from Friday. After three to four rounds of training by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation since May, the enumerators will be on the field for the next three months, collecting data of all residential and commercial establishments of the district on a mobile application.

The enumerators will be on the field for the next three months, collecting data of all residential and commercial establishments of the district on a mobile application. (HT FILE)

On Friday, the survey began with the colonies near Railway Road in the city. Deepak Sherawat, district manager, Common Service Centre (CSC), the nodal agency for conducting the survey, said, “It is for the first time that the team will be using a mobile application created by the union ministry to feed the data collected. It is a paperless survey. As many as 2,500 enumerators and 400 supervisors are deployed in the district for the fieldwork.”

The Economic Census is a country-wide data collection exercise. The last census was conducted in 2013. The Census aims to provide information on various economic aspects of all residential and commercial establishments in the country.

“The data collected is crucial in devising policies for socio-economic development of districts,” said Sherawat, who manages CSCs in all the 203 panchayats and 89 wards of the district. The CSCs were established under Digital India programme by the ministry of electronics and information technology as a delivery point to provide all the digitally enabled government services.

As a part of the survey, establishments in the city have been divided into three categories — residential, commercial and others. “A mobile application has been prepared to feed the data on the basis of a particular kind of establishment. In the residential category, the focus will be on collecting data on economic activity and the source of income of a family, apart from basic details like the name of the owner and the address of the house,” said Sherawat.

“On the other hand, in the commercial category, there are specific questions like the number of hired and non-hired employees by an enterprise, nature of the economic activity, investment and revenue collection, turnover, among others,” he said.

Under the survey, each enumerator will get Rs. 13 for every residential establishment covered, Rs. 16.5 for establishments that are both residential and commercial in nature, and Rs. 26.5 for an exclusively commercial establishment.