Data gaps in the country’s statistical system may be filled to a large extent with the government now looking to launch five new surveys to capture activities in the services sector, informal enterprises, women in households, overall establishments and employment creation.

"We will be launching an Annual Survey of Services, Survey of Informal Enterprises, Time Use Survey and the Economic Census in 2018-19," said KV Eapan, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

The Ministry has now sought funds from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry to carry out the surveys.

Elaborating on the new Surveys, Eapan said each of them will provide critical data on important parts of the economy that are currently not available.

The Economic Census will also be linked to the GST Network to create a business register of all establishments in the country and will now be carried out every three years. It was earlier undertaken every five years.

Additionally, the results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey that was launched in April 2017 would also be available this year, DV Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister, MoSPI, told reporters.

MVS Ranganadham, Director-General, Economic Statistics said that the National Sample Survey Organisation has already carried out a survey on the services sector as part of the 74th round.

"This was an experiment for us before the launch of the Annual Survey of Services," he said.

Base year revision

Unveiling the Ministry’s plans for 2018-19, Gowda said that the base year revision of macro-economic indicators including National Accounts, Index of Industrial Production and Consumer Price Index will also begin.

"The new base year for GDP and IIP will be 2017-18 and for CPI, it will be 2018," he told reporters.

The current base year followed for these indices is 2011-12. It will take about two years for the revision to take effect and the new series will be available from 2020-21.

Gowda said the Ministry has been allocated ?4,859 crore for 2018-19 as compared with ?4,783 crore for the current fiscal.