India is participating in the current phase of International Comparison Programme (ICP) with reference to 2017. It is a global statistical initiative that supports inter-country comparisons of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its components, using Purchasing Power Parity. Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MOSPI) will take up the price collection work in rural and urban areas shortly all over the country. This was stated by the Minister for Statistics & Programme Implementation Shri D.V.Sadananda Gowda while inaugurating the new office building of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Sankhyiki Bhawan in New Delhi today.Today, with the inauguration of the new building, a new chapter begins in the history of NSSO. Now, with all Divisions under one roof, it will improve coordination of various work at a very closer level resulting speedier and better output. The Minister expressed hope that the present infrastructure will pave the way for a better working environment resulting in quality output. The better facilities will further enhance productivity and will reach new levels of professionalism and Sankhyiki Bhawan will become a new landmark in Delhi. This building has adopted modern energy efficient devices while conserving natural light and using solar power. The new building is equipped with modern facilities like video conferencing, high speed internet, centralized AC, and power backup.The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has adopted the latest Information & Communication Technology (ICT).
Established in 1950, the National Sample Survey Office conducts nation-wide large-scale sample surveys to obtain comprehensive and continuing information relating to social, economic, demographic, industrial and agricultural aspects. It has been instrumental in developing a strong database that has helped the Central as well as State Governments in developmental planning and policy formulations. The work of NSSO has won international acclaim and stimulated the creation of similar organisations in other developing countries. NSSO is known for its professionalism. Every survey is planned meticulously & field data collection mechanism is elaborate. The results brought out by NSSO are used widely both by national & international entities – in a variety of ways for planning, policy formulation, research, decision making, opinion framing & gauging the pulse of the economy. MOSPI has witnessed remarkable advancements since its inception and in recent past it has taken a number of new initiatives to modernize the data collection, processing, storage, dissemination etc. in line with digital India program.Central Statistics Office(CSO) is also conducting the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), the principal source of industrial statistics in India every year.
Nowadays, data is collected online through a web-portal directly from data source. The portal permits either the respondent establishment or the field office of NSSO to submit the data for validation and processing. This has increased the accuracy of data as the validation checks which are provided, reduces the errors considerably. Online collection of data has significantly reduced the cost and time. The web portal is being continuously refined.CSO is planning to develop a web-based data collection system for Index of Industrial Production (IIP), a monthly index compiled to assess the growth of industrial production and release with a lag of 6 weeks. Data collection exercise has gone digital with conduct of quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) using tablets, and guided by computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) technique. The project is expected to result in huge time savings and will be performed by the surveyors of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), who will track and upload employment data, among others.A focused survey on services sector has been incorporated in the 74th round of NSS during 2016-17. The frame for this survey comprises of the list of establishments from Sixth Economic Census (EC), available Business Registers (BR), and the list of active private non-financial companies (MCA-2013-14) with some auxiliary information.
Those Enterprises which are maintaining accounts will be covered and data collection will be carried out under the provisions of the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008. The experience of this round will be examined to explore the possibility of conducting the survey of the services sector an annual feature similar to the existing Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). The Ministry has established a wide area network dedicated to information on ‘State Domestic Product’. The objective is to collect and present data pertaining to SDP from all 29 States and 7 Union Territories of India at one platform. This portal is being used by the Directorate of Economics & Statistics (DES) and M/o Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI). The Ministry has made efforts to provide NSS estimates at lower administrative level. At present, the NSS estimates are given at National and State levels due to limitation on size of Central Sample. Increase in sample size by pooling of Central and State sample data enables generation of sub-state level estimates. A Manual on Pooling of Central and State Sample Data covering all methodological aspects of Pooling Central and State sample data, prepared by NSSO, has been released for use by States. NSSO is providing technical support to State/UT DESs in the exercise of pooling of data of central and state samples.