Why Indian Economical Census to be held every 3 years?

The Census to be held every three years: Indian economic census is the census of the Indian Economy that counts entrepreneurial units in the country which are involved economic activities of either agricultural or non-agricultural sector which engaged in production and/or distribution of goods and/or services not for the sole purpose of own consumption . The census provides detailed information on operational and other characteristics such as number of establishments, number of persons employed, source of finance, type of ownership etc. This information used for micro level/ decentralized planning and to assess contribution of various sectors of the economy in the gross domestic product (GDP). Who collects the data?rnIt is a periodic exercise conducted by the MoSPI to collect disaggregated information on various operational and structural aspects of all economic establishments in the country. It is meant to provide insights into geographical spread of economic activities, ownership pattern, persons engaged, and sources of finance of the establishments engaged in economic activities across the country. How the census data collected earlier?rnThe previous censuses have been conducted in paper schedules through enumerators engaged by State governments. In the latest census, data will be collected, validated and disseminated through advanced IT usage, which is expected to reduce the lag in finalisation of results, as well as improve accuracy and coverage of the data. Dependency on Data for Economic CensusrnTo assess the country’s economic performance, economists and statisticians had to depend on data which was dated. But now, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has taken upon itself to make available the latest data and come out with the economic census every three years. What the secretary says about Economic Census?rnPravin Srivastava, Secretary MoSPI, and Chief Statistician of India (CSI), said: “We are pursuing a strategy to move all data-capturing activities on a digital mode/platform. This facilitates faster collection and capturing of information and improved quality with in-built validation checks.” The move has been initiated with the work on the seventh census. “The data being collected in the economic census undergoes three levels of scrutiny, all of which is through the mobile application developed exclusively for the economic census,” he told Business Line.