The unincorporated sector in India experienced positive growth in various segments in 2022-23 in comparison to 2021-22, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The number of establishments in the informal sector witnessed a growth of 5.88 per cent from October 2022 to September 2023 compared with April 2021 to March 2022, with Uttar Pradesh topping the charts with 13.83 per cent of total such enterprises, followed by West Bengal and Maharashtra.
As per the annual survey of unincorporated sector enterprises (Asuse) results for 2021-22 and 2022-23, the total number of establishments grew from 5.97 crore in 2021-22 to 6.50 crore in 2022-23. In Asuse 2022-23, the service sector became the biggest contributor with 37.88 per cent followed by trade at 34.71 per cent. Nearly 40 per cent of all establishments are engaged in either retail (Roughly 30 per cent) or manufacturing of apparel (11 per cent).
There has been an increase in registrations of establishments in the sector as the percentage increased from 29.40 per cent in Asuse 2021-22 to 36.80 per cent in Asuse 2022-23.
The estimated number of workers in this sector also showcased an increase by 7.84 per cent over the two survey periods. The unincorporated non-agricultural sector employed about 11 crore workers during the 2022-23 survey period, up from 9.8 crore in 2021-22.
Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal made up more than one-third of the labour force. Even after this increase in the total employment, the proportion of female workers witnessed a mere growth of only 0.11 per cent going from 25.52 per cent in 2021-22 to 25.63 per cent in 2022-23. Female proprietors head nearly 54 per cent of manufacturing sector proprietary establishments during both survey periods.
An indicator of the economic performance of the sectors, the gross value added (GVA) managed to witness an annual growth of 9.83 per cent. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu secured the top three spots in 2022-23.
The use of information technology has been one of the key drivers of growth in the sector. Asuse 2022-23 saw a surge in the use of internet for entrepreneurial purposes such as placing orders online. Internet usage saw an increase of 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 as it grew from 13.90 per cent in 2021-22 to 21.10 per cent in 2022-23. The urban sector has seen a rise of 8.6 per cent over the survey period while the rural sector witnessed a 5.8 per cent rise.
In addition to this, due to improved capital investment in the sector, fixed assets owned by an unincorporated non-agricultural establishment on an average also witnessed an improvement. It rose from Rs 2,81,013 in 2021-22 to Rs 3,18,144 in 2022-23. Loan availability also indicated an improvement as the outstanding loan per establishment increased from Rs 37,408 in 2021-22 to Rs 50,138 in 2022-23.
According to MoSPI, the data was collected from 4,58,938 establishments in Asuse 2022-23 as compared with 4,16,269 establishments in Asuse 2021-22.
