The total number of establishments in the unincorporated sector increased to 65 million in 2022-23, from 59.7 million in 2021-22, representing a 5.9% growth on year, a report released by the statistics ministry showed.
The report said that the unincorporated sector in the country has witnessed growth in estimated number of workers by 7.84% on year, and in gross-value added by 9.83% (in current price) on year, during October, 2022 – September, 2023 as compared to April, 2021 – March, 2022.
The report said that over the two survey periods, the sector has demonstrated enhanced capital investment, greater accessibility to loans, and increased utilisation of information technology.
Fixed assets owned by an unincorporated non-agricultural establishment, on average, has risen from ` 2,81,013 in 2021-22 to `3,18,144 in 2022-23. “The use of the internet for entrepreneurial purposes has increased by 7.2% indicating a rapid rate of digitisation taking place in the sector,” the report mentioned. Also, about 54% of the proprietary establishments in the manufacturing sector were run by women entrepreneurs, it said.
The unincorporated non-agricultural sector employed about 110 million workers from October 2022 to September 2023, up from 9.8 crore in 2021-22.
More than one-third of this labour force was engaged in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal, the report said.
Also, the proportion of female workers to total workers has marginally increased from 25.52% in 2021-22 to 25.63% in 2022-23. The use of the internet for entrepreneurial purposes has increased to 13.5% from 7.7% in rural and to 30.2% from 21.6% in urban sector during 2022-23 with an overall increase of 7.2%, the report said.
For the 2021-22 survey, the ministry collected data from a total of 4,16,269 establishments (2,39,981 in rural and 1,76,288 in urban), whereas in 2022-23, as many as 4,58,938 establishments (2,58,296 in rural and 2,00,642 in urban) were surveyed.