{"id":123905,"date":"2026-09-11T12:18:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T06:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=123905"},"modified":"2026-09-11T12:18:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T06:48:33","slug":"mapping-indias-informal-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/mapping-indias-informal-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping India\u2019s Informal Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Informal Economy Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the <\/span><b>first time<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (<\/span><b>MoSPI<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) has released district-level estimates on the informal economy, drawing on the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (<\/span><b>ASUSE<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), 2025.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The data covers the unincorporated non-agricultural sector\u2014broadly, establishments engaged in manufacturing, trade and other services.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The district-level estimates provide a more granular picture of women\u2019s participation, wages, enterprise ownership and the geographical concentration of <\/span><b>informal economic activity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which can help improve <\/span><b>evidence-based policymaking<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Women\u2019s Share in Informal Work<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The data reveals a <\/span><b>striking geographical divide <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in women\u2019s participation among informal workers.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Highest women\u2019s participation: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nirmal, Telangana (78% of all its informal workers are women); Imphal East, Manipur (70%); Nizamabad, Telangana (70%); Jagtial, Telangana (69%); and Bishnupur, Manipur (66%).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Lowest women\u2019s participation: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Srinagar, J&amp;K (11%); Hathras, Uttar Pradesh (11%); Banaskantha, Gujarat (11%); Marigaon, Assam (9%); and Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand (7%).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the top 10 districts for women\u2019s share are located in <\/span><b>eastern or northeastern<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> India.\u00a0 22 of the 25 districts with the highest female participation are from the region, with the remaining three in Jharkhand and Odisha.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the other end, Rudraprayag records just 7%. The all-India average is around <\/span><b>29%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while women constitute at least one-third of the informal workforce in 237 districts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Telangana\u2019s presence among the leading districts also highlights the importance of state- and district-specific<\/span><b> socio-economic factors.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>The Pay Divide<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High female participation does <\/span><b>not <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">necessarily translate into uniformly <\/span><b>higher earnings.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among districts where women constitute at least half of the informal workforce, South West Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, is identified as the best-paying district.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here, annual emoluments per hired worker is around \u20b91.71 lakh, compared with an all-India average of about \u20b91.3 lakh.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This underlines the need to <\/span><b>examine <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">both <\/span><b>participation <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the <\/span><b>quality <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of employment, including remuneration, productivity and access to better economic opportunities.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Women\u2019s Enterprise Ownership<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The district-level data also reveals a strong relationship between women\u2019s participation in the workforce and women\u2019s ownership of enterprises.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Districts with high female participation tend to have a high proportion of female-owned proprietary establishments.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Nirmal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which tops the female workforce participation ranking, also has nearly 80% of proprietary establishments <\/span><b>owned by women.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This suggests that women\u2019s economic participation in some regions is not confined to being workers; it also extends to <\/span><b>entrepreneurship <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and ownership of informal enterprises.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Economic Activity Is Highly Concentrated<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The distribution of informal economic activity is very different when measured by the absolute number of workers and establishments rather than women\u2019s participation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>North 24 Parganas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, West Bengal has the largest number of informal workers\u2014about 21.3 lakh\u2014and around 16.6 lakh establishments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The top 10 districts by number of establishments account for around 11% of the total Gross Value Added (GVA) generated by the sector. The top 50 districts account for almost one-third of the sector\u2019s GVA.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus, while women\u2019s participation is particularly high in several northeastern districts, the scale of informal economic activity is <\/span><b>concentrated <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in a relatively smaller set of districts across India.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Significance for Policy<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The findings highlight <\/span><b>three <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">interconnected policy concerns &#8211;<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Women\u2019s labour-force participation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: High female representation in informal work needs to be converted into productive and remunerative employment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Women-led entrepreneurship<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: High female ownership of proprietary enterprises can be leveraged through credit, skilling, digitalisation and market access.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Regional targeting<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Large inter-district variations demonstrate the need for <\/span><b>granular<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, locally tailored policies rather than one-size-fits-all interventions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Importance and challenges of the informal sector<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: It contributes significantly to employment, <\/span><b>livelihoods <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and economic activity, while often operating outside the institutional protections available to formal workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Why district-level data matters:<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report covers 757 districts, although geographical coverage can vary because of administrative changes, including the creation of new districts and changes in district boundaries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">District-level data can help identify districts requiring <\/span><b>focused measures<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for women\u2019s employment, skilling, entrepreneurship, credit access and social protection.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>first <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">district-level estimates of the informal economy provide an important statistical foundation for understanding India\u2019s gendered and geographically uneven informal economy.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Better granular statistics can strengthen <\/span><b>cooperative and competitive federalism<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, outcome-based governance and evidence-based policymaking, particularly for achieving women-led development and inclusive growth.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/business\/nirmal-district-women-informal-workers-asuse-2025-10872806\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>IE<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released district-level estimates on the informal economy, drawing on the ASUSE, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":41585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[10167],"class_list":["post-123905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","tag-informal-economy","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123905"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123935,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123905\/revisions\/123935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}