India - Land and Livestock Holdings Survey Visit 1, January -July 2013, NSS 70th Round

A stratified multi-stage design has been adopted for the 70th round survey. The first stage units (FSU) are the census villages (Panchayat wards in case of Kerala) in the rural sector and Urban Frame Survey (UFS) blocks in the urban sector. The ultimate stage units (USU) are households in both the sectors. In case of large FSUs, one intermediate stage of sampling is the selection of two hamlet-groups (hgs)/ sub-blocks (sbs) from each rural/ urban FSU.

Sampling Frame for First Stage Units: For the rural sector, the list of 2001 census villages updated by excluding the villages urbanised and including the towns de-urbanised after 2001 census (henceforth the term 'village' would mean Panchayat wards for Kerala) constitutes the sampling frame. For the urban sector, the latest updated list of UFS blocks (2007-12) is considered as the sampling frame.

Stratification:
(a)Stratum has been formed at district level. Within each district of a State/ UT, generally speaking, two basic strata have been formed: i) rural stratum comprising of all rural areas of the district and (ii) urban stratum comprising all the urban areas of the district. However, within the urban areas of a district, if there were one or more towns with population 10 lakhs or more as per population census 2011 in a district, each of them formed a separate basic stratum and the remaining urban areas of the district was considered as another basic stratum.

(b)However, a special stratum in the rural sector only was formed at State/UT level before district- strata were formed in case of each of the following 20 States/UTs: Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This stratum will comprise all the villages of the State with population less than 50 as per census 2001.

(c)In case of rural sectors of Nagaland one special stratum has been formed within the State consisting of all the interior and inaccessible villages. Similarly, for Andaman & Nicobar Islands, one more special stratum has been formed within the UT consisting of all inaccessible villages. Thus for Andaman & Nicobar Islands, two special strata have been formed at the UT level:
(i)special stratum 1 comprising all the interior and inaccessible villages
(ii)special stratum 2 containing all the villages, other than those in special stratum 1, having population less than 50 as per census 2001.

Sub-stratification:

Rural sector: Different sub-stratifications are done for 'hilly' States and other States. Ten (10) States are considered as hilly States. They are: Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

(a) sub-stratification for hilly States: If 'r' be the sample size allocated for a rural stratum, the number of sub-strata formed was 'r/2'. The villages within a district as per frame have been first arranged in ascending order of population. Then sub-strata 1 to 'r/2' have been demarcated in such a way that each sub-stratum comprised a group of villages of the arranged frame and have more or less equal population.

(b) sub-stratification for other States (non-hilly States except Kerala): The villages within a district as per frame were first arranged in ascending order of proportion of irrigated area in the cultivated area of the village. Then sub-strata 1 to 'r/2' have been demarcated in such a way that each sub-stratum comprised a group of villages of the arranged frame and have more or less equal cultivated area. The information on irrigated area and cultivated area was obtained from the village directory of census 2001.

(c) sub-stratification for Kerala: Although Kerala is a non-hilly State but because of non-availability of information on irrigation at FSU (Panchayat Ward) level, sub-stratification by proportion of irrigated area was not possible. Hence the procedure for sub-stratification was same as that of hilly States in case of Kerala.

Urban sector: There was no sub-stratification for the strata of million plus cities. For other strata, each district was divided into 2 sub-strata as follows:

sub-stratum 1: all towns of the district with population less than 50000 as per census 2011
sub-stratum 2: remaining non-million plus towns of the district

Total sample size (FSUs): 8042 FSUs have been allocated for the central sample at all-India level. For the state sample, there are 8998 FSUs allocated for all-India.

Allocation of total sample to States and UTs: The total number of sample FSUs have been allocated to the States and UTs in proportion to population as per census 2011 subject to a minimum sample allocation to each State/ UT. While doing so, the resource availability in terms of number of field investigators as well as comparability with previous round of survey on the same subjects has been kept in view.

Allocation of State/ UT level sample to rural and urban sectors: State/ UT level sample size has been allocated between two sectors in proportion to population as per census 2011 with double weightage to urban sector subject to the restriction that urban sample size for bigger states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc. should not exceed the rural sample size. A minimum of 16 FSUs (minimum 8 each for rural and urban sector separately) is allocated to each state/ UT.

Allocation to strata: Within each sector of a State/ UT, the respective sample size has been allocated to the different strata in proportion to the population as per census 2011. Allocations at stratum level are adjusted to multiples of 2 with a minimum sample size of 2.

For special stratum formed in the rural areas of 20 States/UTs, 2 FSUs were allocated to each.

For special stratum 1 in the rural areas of Nagaland and Andaman & Nicobar Islands, 4 and 2 FSUs were allocated respectively.

Allocation to sub-strata:
Rural: Allocation is 2 for each sub-stratum in rural.
Urban: Stratum allocations have been distributed among the two sub-strata in proportion to the number of FSUs in the sub-strata. Minimum allocation for each sub-stratum is 2


There was no deviation from the original sample deviation.



No. of first stage units (f.s.u's) is 4469 and No. of Second stage units (s.s.u's) is 35604


For generating any estimate, one has to extract relevant portion of the data, and aggregate after applying the weights.

Weights (or multipliers) VARIABLES are given at the end of record of each dataset. The weights (multipliers) are WGT_SS for Sub-sample-wise estimation and WGT_Combined for combined subsample estimates.

All records of a household will have same weight figure. In case of those Blocks/Levels, where Item/Person Sl.No. is not applicable the field is filled up with 00000.

Use of subsample-wise weights (multipliers)

For generating subsample-wise estimates based on data of all subrounds taken together, either Subsample-1 households or Subsample-2 households are to be considered at one time. Subsample code is available in the dataset For generating subsample-combined estimates based on data of all subrounds taken together all households are to be considered.