India has 36.4 mn workers in unorganised sector

New Delhi, Jan 29 (UNI) A total of 36.4 million workers were estimated to be working in unorganised manufacturing enterprises during 2005-06, of whom 38 per cent were women, according to an official report.

About 39 per cent of all working owners in this secctor were women. At the state level, Manipur had the highest percentage of 74.4 of women workers.

These figures are borne out by the report "Unorganised manufacturing sector in India - Employment, Assets and Borrowings" based on a survey of unorganised manufacturing enterprises by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

According to the report, West Bengal had the highest share at 15 per cent of workers in unorganised manufacturing enterprises in India.

The term 'unorganised manufacturing enterprises' referred to all manufacturing enterprises, which were not covered by Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). All government and public sector undertakings were also outside the coverage.

Some of the important findings of the survey were: hired workers constituted 24 per cent of the total workers. About 82 per cent of total workers were full-time workers.

The per enterprise value of fixed assets owned was Rs 58,166, with land and building having the dominant share -- 70 per cent -- of the total fixed assets owned and 98 per cent of the assets hired. Next was placed plant and machinery which totalled 21 per cent of the total fixed assets owned.

As regards loans, central and state level term lending institution, banks and other societies provided the highest percentage (49 per cent) of loans to unorganised manufacturing enterprises during 2005-06. But very high interest rates at 27 per cent was extracted by moneylenders as a percentage of outstanding loan among all agencies providing loan, the survey noted.

The report, the second in a series of three reports being brought out on unorganised manufacturing enterprises, provides information on employment, assets and borrowings of these enterprises at the all India level for different industry groups and at the level of States/UTs for all the industry groups taken together.

Barring some interior areas of Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar islands and Leh and Kargil districts of Jammu and Kashmir, all states/Union Territories were covered by the survey. A sample of 82897 enterprises were actually surveyed of which 2,260 enterprises belonged to list frame and the remaining were spread over 9,923 sample villages/urban blocks in the area frame.

UNI SD SB HS1804