The National Statistical Office has released the first ever district level estimates from the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises, mapping the productivity of India’s informal non-agricultural economy district by district. Haryana has emerged on top with seven districts in the national top 50 by Gross Value Added per worker, while the national average stands at ₹1.56 lakh. The findings show a sharp concentration of output, with one third of informal activity coming from just 50 districts.
What Is the Informal Sector and What Does ASUSE Measure?
The informal sector refers to small economic units that operate outside formal legal and record keeping systems. In India, these are mainly unincorporated proprietary and partnership enterprises owned by individuals or households. They do not maintain regular audited accounts, and most workers have no written contract, paid leave or social security cover. Common examples are kirana shops, tailoring units, repair workshops, small eateries, road transport operators and home based manufacturing units.
The unorganised sector is a wider term used in India’s National Accounts. It includes all such informal proprietary and partnership units, plus some units run by cooperatives, trusts, self help groups and societies that are also not covered by regular company or factory law. In this sense, the informal sector can be seen as a subset of the unorganised sector. This distinction matters because the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) focuses strictly on unincorporated non-agricultural establishments in manufacturing, trade and other services, leaving out construction, agriculture and incorporated companies.
ASUSE is conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). MoSPI was formed on 15 October 1999, and NSO functions as its main statistical arm for surveys, national accounts and price data. ASUSE was tested in 2019, disrupted by the pandemic, and then launched as a full annual survey in April 2021. It collects data on the number of establishments, employment, output, input costs, Gross Value Added (GVA), wages, fixed assets, loans and use of digital tools. GVA is simply the value of output minus the value of intermediate inputs like raw material and electricity. When divided by the number of workers, GVA per worker shows how productive each worker is on average.
What Did the First District Level Estimates Find?
This is the first time ASUSE results have been released at the district level. Earlier rounds gave only national and state level figures. The new design treats each district within a state as a basic sampling unit, so states can now produce annual district estimates. In ASUSE 2025, data were collected from 6,70,289 establishments across 24,153 sample areas in rural and urban India, which makes such fine grained comparison possible.
The headline result is the national average of ₹1.56 lakh GVA per worker in the informal non-agricultural sector. Against this benchmark, the top districts record values several times higher. Satara in Maharashtra ranks first with ₹8.7 lakh per worker, followed by Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab and Tonk in Rajasthan. These gaps show that productivity in the informal economy is not uniform, and local conditions such as market access, type of activity, capital per unit and skills make a large difference.
At the state level, Haryana leads the ranking of the top 50 districts by GVA per worker, with 7 districts in the list. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana follow with 6 districts each. Together, these four states account for 25 of the top 50 districts. The survey also finds that 33 percent of India’s informal sector activity is concentrated in the 50 most productive districts, and 40 of these 50 districts are located in only 8 states. This points to a strong clustering of high value informal activity in a few industrial and urban corridors.
How Is the Informal Sector Different From the Formal Sector?
The formal or organised sector includes units that are registered under law, maintain regular accounts, pay taxes and follow labour rules. Examples are companies registered under the Companies Act, 2013, factories covered by the Factories Act, 1948 and government offices. Workers here usually have appointment letters and benefits such as provident fund and insurance.
The informal or unorganised sector works in the opposite way. Units are small, often family run, and operate without formal registration or regular accounts. Employment is casual or seasonal, incomes are low and irregular, and there is little protection from law or unions. The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 defines the unorganised sector as enterprises owned by individuals or self employed workers where, if workers are employed, the total number cannot exceed ten. The organised sector is simply defined in that law as everything that is not the unorganised sector.
The table below summarises the contrast in simple terms.
| Feature | Formal or Organised Sector | Informal or Unorganised Sector |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | Registered under company, factory or shop law | Mostly unregistered or only locally listed |
| Accounts | Maintains regular audited books | No regular accounts |
| Workforce size | Generally 10 or more workers with formal contracts | Less than 10 workers, mostly casual or family labour |
| Social security | Provident fund, insurance and paid leave | Largely absent |
| Coverage in ASUSE | Not covered, covered separately by company surveys | Fully covered if non-agricultural and unincorporated |
In scale, the unorganised sector still dominates employment. Past official estimates placed more than 80 percent of workers in the unorganised sector and close to 90 percent in informal employment, while its share in total GVA was around 43 to 44 percent in recent years. This is why ASUSE data are used for national accounts, employment analysis and schemes of ministries such as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Textiles and Labour.
Where Is High Productivity Concentrated?
The district map shows two clear patterns. First, a small set of states holds most of the highly productive districts. Second, within those states, productivity peaks in districts with strong manufacturing clusters, trade hubs or proximity to large cities and highways.
| State | Districts in National Top 50 by GVA per Worker |
|---|---|
| Haryana | 7 |
| Maharashtra | 6 |
| Tamil Nadu | 6 |
| Telangana | 6 |
| Other 4 states in top 8-state group | 15 |
| Remaining states | 10 |
Haryana’s lead reflects its dense network of small industrial towns around Delhi, good road links and a high share of hired worker units that use more capital per worker. Maharashtra’s presence at both ends of the table is striking, with Satara at the very top and five other districts also in the top 50. Tamil Nadu and Telangana show a similar spread, with active trade, food processing, textiles and service clusters lifting average value added.
The concentration figure is important for policy. If 50 districts produce one third of informal value, targeted steps on credit, skilling, power supply and market linkage in these districts can have a national effect. At the same time, low productivity districts will need separate support so that the gap does not widen. District estimates now allow state governments to set local targets instead of relying only on state averages.
Female Participation in the Informal Workforce
The report finds that Telangana and the Northeastern states recorded the highest female participation in the informal workforce. This fits a longer pattern seen in ASUSE rounds. In ASUSE 2023-24, about 28.1 percent of all workers in unincorporated non-agricultural units were women. Andhra Pradesh at 38.5 percent, Telangana at 37 percent and West Bengal at 35.9 percent were among the top states. In manufacturing, the share of women was even higher, at 55.1 percent in rural areas and 37.1 percent in urban areas.
Two other trends add context. Women owned proprietary units rose from 26.2 percent in 2023-24 to 27 percent in 2025, and in manufacturing more than 60 percent of units were headed by female proprietors. Much of this work is in wearing apparel, food processing, tailoring and personal services. High female participation in Telangana and the Northeast reflects stronger traditions of women run shops, handloom and food units, along with wider acceptance of women working outside the home. For policy, this underlines the need for safe workplaces, childcare support, easy micro credit and market access that reaches women owned units directly.
Why District Level Data Matters for Policy
National averages hide large local differences, and that is the main value of this release. A state may look average while a few of its districts perform at formal sector levels and others lag badly. With district GVA per worker, planners can identify which activities drive value in each place, whether it is retail trade, apparel, repair services or food processing, and then align training, credit and infrastructure to that mix.
The data also feed directly into National Accounts Statistics, which use value added per worker from enterprise surveys and employment numbers from job surveys to estimate output. Better district ratios improve state GDP estimates and help ministries design schemes for micro units, vendor clusters and service hubs. The next steps will be to release full unit level data, link the findings with credit and digital adoption indicators from ASUSE 2025, and repeat district estimation every year so that progress can be tracked. For local administrations, the immediate use is simple. Protect high performing clusters from power cuts and credit gaps, and lift low performing districts with skilling, formalisation support and stronger links to larger supply chains.
Key Takeaways
- The first district level ASUSE estimates were released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under MoSPI.
- The national average GVA per worker in the informal non-agricultural sector is ₹1.56 lakh.
- Satara in Maharashtra recorded the highest productivity at ₹8.7 lakh per worker, followed by Fatehgarh Sahib and Tonk.
- Haryana leads with 7 districts in the national top 50, while Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have 6 each.
- 33 percent of informal activity is concentrated in 50 districts, with 40 of them in only 8 states.
- Telangana and the Northeastern states reported the highest female participation in the informal workforce.
