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The National Statistics Office (NSO) on Thursday released district-level estimates for India's unincorporated non-agricultural sector for the first time, with the top 50 districts accounting for nearly one-third of the sector's establishments, workforce and Gross Value Added (GVA), according to a release by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The estimates, based on the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2025, provide a more detailed picture of the scale, structure and economic performance of the sector across districts. The Ministry said the initiative marks a significant step towards strengthening granular sub-state-level statistics in India. The district-level estimates cover 757 of the 770 districts available in the sampling frame during the survey. They include indicators on establishments and workers, ownership and employment structure, women's participation, registration status, emoluments per hired worker, and GVA per establishment and per worker. The data show a notable concentration of economic activity. The top 10 districts, ranked by the estimated number of unincorporated establishments, account for about one-tenth of total establishments, workers and GVA generated by the sector, while the top 50 districts account for nearly one-third. Around one-third of all districts have more than one lakh unincorporated establishments, while about 9 per cent have fewer than 10,000 establishments. Only 16 districts have more than five lakh establishments, including eight in West Bengal, three in Maharashtra, two in Gujarat and one each in Karnataka, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. The estimates also highlight differences in productivity across districts. GVA per worker is estimated at between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh in about 331 districts, while in 280 districts it exceeds the all-India average of Rs 1,56,539. Women's participation is another key feature of the district-level data. Women constitute one-third of the workforce in the unincorporated sector in 237 districts, while they account for more than half of the workforce in 25 districts. The report also identifies regional patterns in female entrepreneurship. The top 10 districts with the highest share of female-led unincorporated establishments are located in Telangana, Manipur and Meghalaya. In Mizoram, female-owned proprietary establishments account for at least 50 per cent of establishments in each district of the state. MoSPI said granular and high-frequency data can help identify regional variations, emerging strengths and areas requiring attention, thereby enabling more targeted and area-specific policy interventions. The district-level estimates are based on sample survey data and the ministry cautioned that differences in regional economic and demographic characteristics, local conditions and sampling variability should be considered while interpreting them. (ANI)
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