Why in News?

Recently, provisional results of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) was released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

• The survey was conducted during April 2021 to January 2022 through ASI Web Portal.

What is the ASI?

• ASI, the principal source of industrial statistics in India, is the most comprehensive data on organised manufacturing.

• It covers all factories employing 10 or more workers using power and those employing 20 or more workers without using power.

What are the Highlights of the Survey?

• Increase in Factories:

  • Factories in the country increased by 1.7% year-on-year to 2.46 lakh in 2019-20, employing a total of 1.3 crore workers.

• Gross Fixed Capital Formation:

  • Gross fixed capital formation, an indicator of investment, grew 20.5% to Rs 4.15 lakh crore in the organised manufacturing sector in 2019-20 as against a growth of 10.2% at Rs 3.44 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.

    • This compares with a growth of 1.98% in the number of factories to 2.42 lakh in 2018-19 and a 1.2% growth seen in the post-demonetisation year of 2017-18.

    • These numbers assume significance as these are the results for the normal year of 2019-20 before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected employment growth.

      • Fixed capital represents the depreciated value of fixed assets owned by the factory as on the closing day of the accounting year and it includes land including lease- hold land, buildings, plant & machinery, furniture and fixtures, transport equipment, water system and roadways and other fixed assets such as hospitals, schools, etc. used for factory workers.

• Employment in the Corporate Sector:

  • Corporate Sector:

    • Employment in the corporate sector, which includes public and private government and non-government companies, increased 5.5% to 97.03 lakh in 2019-20, while that in individual proprietorship declined 3.1% to 11.36 lakh.

• In Partnership:

  • Employment in the partnership sector fell by 11.7% to 18.58 lakh in 2019-20 while that for limited liability partnership grew 42% to 1.22 lakh.

• Employment of Workers:

  • Among states, Tamil Nadu showed the highest number of employment of workers in 2019-20, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat.

• Total Wages Paid:

  • Total wages paid to workers grew 6.3% in 2019-20 as against a wage growth of 11.9% in previous fiscal.

  • Wages to factory workers in the corporate sector rose by 7.7%in 2019-20.

    • Workers figures include all persons employed directly or through any agency whether for wages or not and engaged in any manufacturing process or in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for manufacturing process or in any other kind of work connected with the manufacturing process.