BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Monday kick-started the seventh Economic Census with the release of a special IT application (app) for collection and integration of data. Launching the programme and releasing a mobile application in Lok Seva Bhavan here, Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said, “An IT-based digital platform for data capture, validation, report generation and dissemination along with features of geo-tagging and back-end integration with other data sources like GST will be used for the first time in this Economic Census.”
Another new aspect of the seventh Economic Census is collaboration with Common Service Centres (CSC), one of the mission mode projects under Digital India programme for delivering services to people in rural areas, for conducting household surveys using the mobile app, he said.The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has partnered with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as the implementing agency for the seventh Economic Census.
Economic Census is the complete count of all establishments located within the geographical boundary of the State. The census provides disaggregated information on various operational and structural variables of the establishments. It also provides valuable insight into geographical spread/clusters of economic activities, ownership pattern, persons engaged and the parameters of all economic establishments.
The census will cover all establishments including household enterprises engaged in production or distribution of goods/services (other than for the sole purpose of own consumption) in non-farm agricultural and non-agricultural sector. “The information collected during Economic Census are useful for socio-economic developmental planning at State and district levels. It provides an updated sampling frame for follow-up enterprise surveys undertaken for detailed and comprehensive analysis of all establishments in the State,” he said.
Mohapatra said the census will be completed within three months. Around 31,000 enumerators and 6,600 observers have been roped in for the census. A State level committee under the chairmanship of the Development Commissioner and district level committees under Collectors have been constituted for monitoring the census.
The results of the exercise will be made available after verification and validation of field work. The previous six Economic Censuses were conducted in 1977, 1980, 1990, 1998, 2005 and 2013. All the data collected during the census are kept secret under Collection of Statistics Act, 2008.