By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, DEC 13, 2019: THE Seventh Economic Census was launched in the National Capital Territory of Delhi on Friday. The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) has tied up with Common Service Centre (CSC), an SPV under Ministry of Electronics and IT, to carry out the 7th National Economic Census.

"For the first time the entire Census is being conducted on a digital platform by the use of an application which will ensure high accuracy and data security. Delhi is the 26 th state where the survey has been launched, while the process is already on in 20 states and 5 UTs. In Delhi the entire process will take around three months where enumerators will survey around 45 lakh establishments and households," said Mr A.K Sadhu, DG (Social Statistics), Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Stating that the National Economic Survey, which is conducted every five years, is very crucial for framing of policies and planning for the government and other organisations, Mr Sadhu said: "We are using ICT platform for the first time…we have moved from paper to digital platform to ensure promptness and accuracy of the entire process. It is for this reason that we will be able to complete the entire process in a record time."

According to Mr Nepal Chandra Sen, Head of Operations, CSC: "Over 1.5 lakh trained enumerators have been deployed for the pan-India survey who will be visiting 35 crore establishments and households to carry out the Census. We have already surveyed 3.25 crore establishments while the work is on in 22 crore other."

Talking about the digital platform that has been developed to carry out the survey, Mr. Sen said: "Entire survey is being conducted through an application. It will ensure that there is no data breach. As soon as any data in fed in the application, it is stored in the cloud and no one can access it without permission. Application will also help faster data collation and its analysis making the entire process faster."

The process of Economic Census was first held in 1978. This is the Seventh Census which will provide disaggregated information on various operational and structural aspects of all establishments in the country. The census will provide valuable insights into geographical spread/clusters of economic activities, ownership pattern; persons engaged etc. of the establishments engaged in economic activity.

In the 7th Census, an IT based digital platform is being used for data capture, validation, report generation and dissemination will be used. The fieldwork for the Census started in June 2019. A comprehensive training strategy has been evolved to impart training to enumerators and supervisors engaged in the Census.