Results of first-ever service sector annual survey to be out by year-end

The National Statistical Office (NSO) is working on to release the results of the first-ever Annual Survey of Service Sector Enterprises (ASSSE) by the end of this year, which would help in the base-year revision for the gross domestic product (GDP), sources told Business Standard.

In 2019-20, the government had decided to conduct ASSSE on a regular basis on the lines of Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), which is done annually.

While the government tracks formal industries using the ASI and the informal sector through the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), the coverage of formal service companies is limited.

The results of the ASSSE are expected to bridge the gap. The results, as and when announced, will be the first release by the government of the country's dominant services sector.

Earlier this year, the government released the results of the ASUSE and ASI after a gap for the period 2022-23 and 2021-22, respectively.

The ASI results signalled a robust recovery from the impacts of the pandemic, with industrial output during 2021-22 standing at ~119.27 trillion in value terms, up from ~88.09 trillion during 2020-21.

Meanwhile, a report by the State Bank of India (SBI) based on ASUSE results had shown that India had formalised ~26 trillion of economy over the past seven years, as the share of the informal economy had fallen to 23.7 per cent in FY23 from 25.9 per cent in FY16.