**Policy Summary: National Survey Data Expansion (August 5, 2025)**
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is expanding the scope and accessibility of national survey data collected by the National Sample Survey (NSS). Key initiatives include:
* **Enhanced Granularity:** Starting January 2025, the sampling design for almost all surveys has been modified to generate district-level estimates, enabling more granular, data-driven planning.
* **Revamped Labor Force Survey:** The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been redesigned, also from January 2025, to provide high-frequency labor market indicators with enhanced coverage. Monthly estimates of key employment and unemployment indicators, such as the Labour Force Participation Rate, Worker Population Ratio, and Unemployment Rate, are now available for rural and urban areas at the all-India level in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
* **Data Quality and Standardization:** States/UTs are required to adhere to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prepared by NSS, MoSPI, to ensure compliance with national data quality standards and submission timelines. MoSPI provides technical guidance, sampling designs, survey instruments, and capacity-building support, including training and digital infrastructure.
* **Data Accessibility and Transparency:** Survey reports and unit-level data are released on the MoSPI website. A revamped Microdata portal has been launched with enhanced features, hosting over 175 datasets. The GoIStats Mobile App, launched on Statistics Day 2025, offers an interactive dashboard with dynamic visualizations of socioeconomic indicators.
* **eSankhyiki Portal:** Launched on Statistics Day 2024, the eSankhyiki portal serves as a comprehensive data management and sharing system, featuring dashboards for major socioeconomic indicators and containing over 135 million records.
These initiatives aim to improve the availability, quality, and accessibility of official statistics for data-driven planning and informed decision-making.
This information was provided by Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Planning; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture Rao Inderjit Singh.
Key Entities Referenced
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation: The Indian government ministry responsible for statistical data collection and analysis.
National Sample Survey: A large-scale sample survey conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on various socioeconomic subjects across India.
Periodic Labour Force Survey: A survey conducted to provide high-frequency labor market indicators.
Current Weekly Status: A reference period used in the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for measuring employment and unemployment.
StatesUTs: Refers to all the States and Union Territories of India, emphasizing the importance of their compliance with data quality standards.
Economic Census: A census of all economic establishments in India, contributing to the understanding of the country's economic landscape.
GoIStats Mobile App: A mobile application launched to provide accessible official statistics, featuring socioeconomic indicators and visualizations.
eSankhyiki portal: A portal established for comprehensive data management and sharing of official statistics, offering dashboards and metadata.
Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation
NATIONAL SURVEY DATA EXPANSION
Posted On: 05 AUG 2025 3:15PM by PIB Delhi
The National Sample Survey (NSS) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI)
is responsible for conducting large scale sample surveys on various socio-economic subjects across the
country and give estimates of important indicators based on the Central sample data, both at the national level
and the State/UT level.
From January 2025, in almost all surveys, sampling design has been modified with a provision for
generating district level estimates with district as a basic stratum with an aim to enable data-driven
planning at more granular levels.
The sampling design of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been revamped from January
2025 to address the requirement of high frequency labour market indicators with enhanced
coverage from PLFS. The estimates of key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Labour
Force Participation Rate, Worker Population Ratio, Unemployment Rate) are now available on a
monthly basis for rural and urban areas at all-India level in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
To ensure compliance with national data quality standards and submission timelines, States/UTs
are required to follow the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prepared by NSS, MoSPI which
outlines the timely execution of all stages of the survey cycle. The quality standards followed by
NSS includes robust sampling design, uniform survey instruments, standardized data processing
protocols, and structured validation checks and these are actively encouraged for adoption by the
States/UTs to maintain consistency and comparability across datasets. NSS, MoSPI provides
technical guidance, sampling design, survey instruments, and capacity-building support, including
training and digital infrastructure like tablets, CAPI and cloud servers. States are also encouraged to
form technical committees with local experts to examine data quality and outputs.
In order to enhance the accessibility and transparency of survey data for citizens, the reports of the
survey results are released on the website of MoSPI alongwith the unit level data. In order to
improve the dissemination of unit level data, a revamped Micro-data portal has been launched with
enhanced portal features and more responsive user interface. It currently hosts more than 175
datasets of various Household surveys, Enterprise Surveys, Economic Census (EC), etc.
The GoIStats Mobile App launched on Statistics Day 2025 is a significant milestone in India’s
commitment to make official statistics more accessible to the users. This mobile app features an
interactive dashboard showcasing important socio-economic indicators with dynamic visualisations
of critical metrics including GDP, inflation, employment data, etc.
MoSPI launched e-Sankhyiki portal on Statistics Day 2024 with the objective to establish a
comprehensive data management and sharing system for ease of dissemination of official statistics.
This portal has dashboard for major socio-economic indicators and has more than 135 million
records. Data visualization and Metadata are provided for ease of understanding of data.
This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of
Statistics and Programme Implementation; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of
Planning and Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply to a
question in the Rajya Sabha today.
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Samrat/ Allen(Release ID: 2152476)