ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF EMPLOYMENT IN UNORGANIZED SECTORS
Challenges
The estimates of value added for the primary activities (agriculture, livestock, forestry, fishing and mining) are compiled by multiplying the data on production in quantities with the producers’ prices, and deducting from therein, the material input costs. The commodity-wise data on production, prices and inputs are available from the administrative source agencies. The production data in agriculture, forestry and fishing includes production for own final consumption. Generally for these activities, the overall estimates are prepared, item-wise, and those covered under organized sector are excluded to obtain the value added estimates for the unorganized segment of these activities. However, for mining, the estimates of organized and unorganized segments are compiled independently.
For the agricultural activities, estimates of area under different crops are made from the village records generally on complete enumeration basis, and the estimates of yield for principal crops are based on about 500,000 crop cutting experiments conducted every year. For some of the other crops, especially those covered under plantation crops, the respective Boards provide the relevant production data. However, there is under coverage in this in respect of crops, although the gross cropped area is accounted for from the land use statistics. These relate to certain miscellaneous and ‘other’ crops, for which data on area under these crops is available from land-use statistics, but yield rates are not available. For the sake of exhaustiveness, an estimated value per hectare is applied on the area under these miscellaneous and other crops to arrive at the value of output estimate. Similarly, in respect of output of grass used as feed of livestock, estimates are built up using the gross area available from all sources (including forest) for grazing purpose. The value of output of agriculture also includes agricultural production in the backyard/ foreyard, which is estimated on the basis of data available on land under homestead and value per hectare of horticultural crops. The value added in the unorganized segment is estimated by subtracting the component of organized segment from the overall commodity-wise estimates.
In the livestock, the 5-yearly livestock census provides the data on various categories of livestock population, by age and breed. The growth rates observed between the previous two censuses are used to estimate the livestock population for the subsequent years. The annual yield rates of livestock products are estimated through the Integrated Sample Survey, which is conducted through administrative agencies. By applying the yield rates on the projected livestock population, estimates of various livestock products are obtained. The entire activity is taken to be under the unorganized sector.
In the forestry, the production data furnished by the forest agencies on industrial wood, minor forest products and firewood has some amount of undercoverage. In order to account for this under-coverage, the total production of industrial wood is taken as 110% of the reported production. For the firewood, the production is estimated from the data on household consumption of firewood (available from consumer expenditure surveys) suitably adjusted for inter-industry consumption and other agricultural by products used for firewood purpose. The data on household firewood consumption is available from the consumer expenditure surveys of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), which includes consumption from own resources. From the overall estimates, the components of organized sector are subtracted to obtain the estimates of value added for the unorganized segment.
Data on fishing activity is available from the surveys conducted at landing centres to capture the production of marine and inland fish. The under-coverage in this case relates to subsistence fishing (mainly for own final consumption). Based on type studies conducted in some places, the subsistence fishing is estimated to be 12.5% of inland fish production. The data on production of salted and sundried fish is also available from the administrative sources. The value addition on account of these activities is included in the national accounts. The value added in the unorganized sector is estimated as residual from overall estimates, by subtracting the contribution of activities in the public sector.
For the mining and quarrying activities, data on major minerals, including salt production through pan drying process of reliable quality is available regularly from administrative sources. Contribution of minor minerals to the value added is estimated from the data available with State Governments, and is taken to be under the unorganized sector. The under coverage in this relates to