The Hindu Business Line : Fifth Economic Census in AP from tomorrow

At the end of Census, the Directorate plans to bring out a `Business Register', comprising important details of businesses, including the financial pattern, and their spread. The register would be put on the Internet.

As many as 40,000 enumerators and 15,000 supervisors would carry out the Census, Dr Saroja, Director of the Hyderabad Directorate, said.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, she said the Census is expected to register 38 lakh enterprises with an estimated workforce of one crore.

The fourth Economic Census was held in 1998. "The number of enterprises registered at that time was 29 lakh that employed 75 lakh people," she said.

The Census would gather information on enterprises both in the organised and unorganised sectors.

"The Census will collect information on issues like human resources pattern, ownership and type of activity," she said.

Factors such as how many women and people belonging to SC/ST categories were involved would also be taken into consideration.

The exercise would cost Rs 7.8 crore. While enumerators in rural areas would cover 230 households each, their counterparts in urban areas would cover 150-170 households.

Dr Saroja said the Census would try to catch the new economic activities such as cable operations, health clubs, residential educational institutions and fast food centres. Activities were either not in vogue or not that active during the previous census.

"The comprehensive survey would look into capital formation," she said.

Though there were other Government departments and agencies that collected information on enterprises, no one would have key facts such as whether the enterprise was really functioning or where exactly some units were located.

Information collected would be scanned using Intelligent Character Recognition Technology that would help facilitate easy access to users.

She, however, said information thus collected would not be used for assessing income-tax and sales tax.

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