National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), for first time, released district-level estimates of India’s unincorporated non-agricultural sector. The estimates are based on Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2025 and provide a more granular picture of the sector’s establishments, employment, women’s participation and productivity.
- Coverage: 757 of 770 districts available in the sampling frame at the time of sample selection.
- Estimates cover: establishments and workers, ownership and employment patterns, female participation, registration status, emoluments per hired worker, and GVA per establishment and worker.
- Estimates are also provided for million-plus cities located within the respective districts.
Major Findings
Geographical concentration: The sector is heavily concentrated in a relatively small number of districts.
- The top 10 districts account for about one-tenth of India’s total unincorporated establishments, workforce and GVA.
- The top 50 districts together account for nearly one-third of establishments, workforce and GVA.
- The top 10 districts are located across Gujarat, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
- The top 50 are spread across 12 states: Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
- About one-third of districts have more than 1 lakh establishments, while around 9% have fewer than 10,000.
- Only 16 districts have more than 5 lakh establishments: 8 in West Bengal, 3 in Maharashtra, 2 in Gujarat, and 1 each in Karnataka, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
Productivity and Women’s Participation
- Around 331 districts record GVA per worker between ₹1 lakh and ₹1.5 lakh.
- 280 districts have GVA per worker above the national average of ₹1,56,539.
- Female entrepreneurship is particularly prominent in Telangana, Manipur and Meghalaya among the leading districts.
- Mizoram is notable because women-owned proprietary establishments constitute at least 50% in every district of the state.
- In 237 districts, women constitute at least one-third of the workforce.
- In 25 districts, women account for more than half of the workforce.
District Concentration Within States/UTs
The report identifies the district contributing the largest share of unincorporated establishments within each of the 33 States and Union Territories covered. Notable examples include:
| State/UT | Leading district | Share of establishments |
| Andaman & Nicobar Islands | South Andaman | 61.04% |
| Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu | Dadra and Nagar Haveli | 65.48% |
| Puducherry | Puducherry | 76.64% |
| Goa | North Goa | 77.66% |
| Gujarat | Surat | 19.43% |
| Telangana | Rangareddy | 23.53% |
| Manipur | Imphal West | 24.75% |
| Meghalaya | East Khasi Hills | 26.85% |
| Maharashtra | Pune | 9.14% |
| Karnataka | Bengaluru Urban | 12.83% |
| Tamil Nadu | Chennai | 7.13% |
| Rajasthan | Jaipur | 11.70% |
| Haryana | Gurugram | 9.96% |
ASUSE 2025: What Does It Cover?
Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2025 covers unincorporated non-agricultural establishments in manufacturing, trade and other services across rural and urban India, excluding certain inaccessible villages in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
It includes establishments operating as proprietorships, partnerships other than LLPs, cooperatives, societies, trusts and other forms of ownership in the unincorporated sector.
The survey used a multi-stage stratified sampling design:
- Census villages were first-stage units in rural areas.
- Urban Frame Survey blocks were used in urban areas.
- Establishments were selected from listed establishments within sampled areas.
- Data were primarily collected through oral enquiry using a monthly reference period, with Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) on tablets.
Importance and Limitations
District-level release strengthens sub-state-level statistical information, enabling more targeted policymaking based on local employment, entrepreneurship and productivity patterns.
MoSPI had earlier published a statistical profile covering 46 million-plus cities, based on Census 2011 population; the new exercise provides a much wider district-level view.
Since these are sample-survey estimates, users must consider differences in economic and demographic conditions, industrial composition, local factors and sampling variability. Relative Standard Errors (RSEs) are provided to assess statistical reliability.
Separate district estimates were not released for:
- Delhi, because its districts were combined into a single rural and urban sampling stratum.
- Lakshadweep and Chandigarh, because each has only one district and therefore its district estimate is the same as the already published Union Territory-level estimate.