Do it yourself

The unincorporated sector, popularly referred to as the unorganized or informal sector, – comprising millions of small manufacturers, traders, and service providers – is indubitably the backbone of India’s economy. While informal in structure, it is deeply formal in impact: generating livelihoods, fostering entrepreneurship, and contributing significantly to the country’s GDP. Recently, the National Statistics Office (NSO) has begun releasing quarterly data on this sector through QBUSE, marking a big step toward more frequent and reliable tracking. The following is a summary of the data for the first two quarters of the year 2025. The data survey highlights that despite the challenges of formalization, productivity, and sustainability, the sector is expanding. Informal enterprises are growing with rising employment, steady digital adoption, and a strong rural push, and are continuing to be a silent driver of growth. Key points ·          T...

Recently the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Government of India, released the results of the   Forward-Looking Survey on Private Sector CAPEX Investment Intentions , providing valuable insights into 3 year trends and future outlook private corporate sector capital expenditure plans. The good ·          The average Gross Fixed Assets (GFA) per enterprise in the private corporate sector increased from Rs. 3,151.9 crore in 2021 – 22 to Rs. 4,183.3 crore in 2023 – 24, reflecting a healthy growth of 32.7% over the two years. This implies an average capital expenditure of Rs 366cr per corporate during FY22 to FY24. The estimated provisional capital expenditure per enterprise for purchasing new assets in the year 2024–25 is Rs. 172.2 crore. ·           Overall aggregate capital expenditure of the private corporate sector increased 66.3% over the four-year period from 2021-22 to 2024-25...

Capital expenditure (capex) has been one of the primary focus areas of the government in the past one decade. As per the Economic Survey 2024, “The focus of capex has been broad-based. Spending in sectors such as road transport and highways, railways, defense services, and telecommunications delivers higher and longer impetuses to growth by addressing logistical bottlenecks and expanding productive capacities. Government capex has also begun to crowd in private investment, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Additionally, the Government continues to disburse grants-in-aid for the creation of capital assets to the states, thereby incentivizing them to increase their productive spending.” Accordingly, “capex” has emerged as an important driver of growth, as indicated in its rising share of nominal GDP. As per the provisional actual (PA) figures for the FY24, capex for FY24 stood at ₹ 9.5 lakh crore, an increa...

 The latest quarterly bulletin on employment and unemployment indicators released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India makes interesting reading. The latest data presented in the bulletin in based on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) carried out between July-September 2019, i.e., well before the lockdown forced by the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The key highlights of the survey are as follows: ·          For the purposes of the Survey, the “Labour Force Participation Rate” (LFPR) is defined as the ratio of population which offers itself for employment, whether currently employed or unemployed. The “Worker Population Ratio” (WPR) is the ratio of employed workers in the total population of the country. ·          As per the latest data, in urban areas, LFPR was ~37%. For the young people (15-29yrs) the rate was at ~39%, while all people above 15...

In the three year agenda released in 2017, NITI Aayog noted that "unemployment is the lesser of India’s problems. The more serious problem, instead, is severe underemployment. A job that one worker can perform is often performed by two or more workers. In effect, those in the workforce are employed, but they are overwhelmingly stuck in low-productivity, low-wage jobs...Therefore, what is needed is the creation of high-productivity, high-wage jobs." The action agenda therefore emphasized on increased emergence of larger, organized-sector firms that can create high paying jobs. To meet this end, promoting exports was considered a better option rather than trying to substitute imports by producing in India. The agenda paper accordingly highlighted that "A focus on the domestic market through an import-substitution strategy, however attractive it may seem, would give rise to a group of relatively small firms behind a high wall of protection. They will not on...