Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) : 2025 (January 2025 – December 2025)

Outline of sampling design: A stratified multi-stage sampling design was adopted for ASUSE.
Rural sector: The first stage units (FSU) were the census villages in this sector. For rural part of Kerala, Panchayat wards (PW) were taken as FSUs.
Urban sector: The First Stage Units (FSU) was the latest updated UFS (Urban Frame Survey) blocks.
The Ultimate Stage Units (USU) were establishments for both the sectors. In the case of large FSUs, one intermediate stage of sampling was the selection of three hamlet-groups (HGs)/sub-blocks (SBs) from each of the large FSUs.
Sampling frame for selection of FSUs:
Census 2011 list of villages was used as the sampling frame for rural areas. Auxiliary information such as number of workers, etc. available from Sixth Economic Census (EC) frame was used for stratification, sub-stratification and selection of FSUs in rural areas (except Kerala). In rural areas of Kerala, list of Panchayat Wards (PW) as per Census 2011 was used as sampling frame. For all urban areas, the latest updated list of UFS blocks (mostly, UFS 2017-22 or UFS 2022-27) was the sampling frame.
Stratification of FSUs:
(a) Each district was a stratum. Within each district of a State/UT, generally speaking, two basic strata were formed:
(i) rural stratum comprising of all rural areas of the district and
(ii) urban stratum comprising of all the urban areas of the district. However, within the urban areas of a district, if there were one or more towns with population one million or more as per Census 2011, each of them formed a separate basic stratum and the remaining urban areas of the district was considered as another basic stratum.
• each million plus city as per census 2011 constitutes a separate stratum. Stratum numbers were 01, 02, 03....,19
• rest of the urban areas of the district was given stratum number 20.
(b) A special stratum, in the rural areas only, was formed at State/Ut level before district level strata were formed in each State/UT. This stratum comprises of all the villages with zero worker as per EC 6 and Census 2011. Due to very few number of zero worker villages in Delhi, Goa and Ladakh, no special stratum (zero stratum) had been formed in these States/UTs.
Sub-stratification of FSUs:
Rural sector (Except Kerala)
Due to very small population size in rural sector of Delhi, all the districts in Delhi were merged and constitute one district only. All the districts in urban part of New Delhi get sample allocation but for keeping similarity with rural part of Delhi, in urban area also districts were merged for multiplier and RSE% computation. Due to small population sizes, no sub-stratum was formed in the rural sector of Delhi (071), Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli (251), Lakshadweep (311) and Puducherry (341). Moreover, some villages (islands) in rural Lakshadweep have been uninhabited for several years and classified as prohibited by the local administration. In this case, to ensure minimum number of samples as per the sampling design, all the remaining four (4) inhabited villages had been automatically selected.
All the villages with zero worker as per EC6 and census 2011 worker within each State/Ut formed a stratum (say, ‘zero stratum’) within that State/UTs, wherever available.
Except for those UTs mentioned above, for the remaining part of the district of any state/UT (excluding those zero worker villages mentioned above), the principle of forming more sub-strata where variation was higher was adopted. For this purpose, variability of number of workers in a stratum (i.e. districts) was assessed by computing Coefficient of Variation (CV) of the workers belonging to it. For computing those CV, the Sixth EC non-agricultural worker figures were considered first. In absence of the 6th EC worker, census non-agricultural worker figures were considered.
Three ‘non-zero sub-strata’ (i.e., number of workers was positive) were formed within each district where CV of worker in a stratum was more than 3; 2 ‘non-zero sub-strata’ were formed where CV of worker in a stratum was more than 2 but less than or equal to 3, and 1 ‘non-zero sub-stratum’ was formed where CV of worker in a stratum was less than or equals 2.
The ‘non-zero sub-strata’, as mentioned above, within each stratum was formed by equalizing total worker size of the sub-strata. In other words, the ‘non-zero sub-strata’ within each stratum was formed in such a way that each of the sub-stratum possesses more or less equal no. of workers. Sub-strata having too few villages were merged with other sub-strata in the same stratum.
Rural sector (Kerala)
Four sub-strata were created within each stratum (i.e., district) by dividing the population into quintiles. Thus, each sub-stratum contained about 25% population of the respective stratum
Urban Sector:
For each stratum, two sub-strata were formed based on the information as available from the latest available UFS blocks as follows:
sub-stratum 1: UFS blocks identified as Bazaar area (BA)/ Industrial area (IA)/ Hospital area (HA)/ Slum area (SA) which were likely to contain relatively higher number of establishments.
sub-stratum 2: remaining UFS blocks of the stratum
Allocation of FSUs:
Total sample size (FSUs): About 24300 FSUs was covered for the central sample at all-India level.
Allocation Strategy: Basic objective of ASUSE 2025 was generation of quarterly estimates for major indicators at all-India level as well as annual estimates for all indicators at State/UT/all-India level. Sample FSUs were selected independently on quarterly basis. Sample size at all-India level was decided considering RSE (%) of important indicators at State/UT level and also considering minimum allocation at each stratum × sub-stratum level on quarterly basis. Minimum 2 FSUs were allocated in each quarter at stratum × sub-stratum level to ensure computation of RSE at later stage. In case of million plus cities, a minimum of 20 FSUs were allotted annually. In the rural sector, districts with higher coefficient of variation (CV) of workers were allocated more FSUs to ensure better estimates. Since Bazaar and Hospital areas presumably had more establishments than other areas, more FSUs were allocated to sub-stratum 1 of the urban sector.
Sector-wise allocation of total sample to States and UTs: In rural area, initially, CVs of workers were calculated separately for all the districts. Next, as per the criteria mentioned in section 1.3.4, number of sub-strata was determined. In rural areas, in each stratum × sub-stratum, a minimum of 8 FSUs had been allotted for the whole year ensuring minimum 2 FSUs quarterly. Also for zero stratum in each State/UT, 8 FSUs were allocated for the whole year to ensure a minimum of 2 FSUs for each quarter.
In urban area, within each district, 2 sub-strata were formed based on area type. Minimum 2 FSUs were allotted quarterly in these two sub-strata ensuring a minimum of 8 FSUs for the whole year. For million plus cities a minimum of 20 FSUs were allotted for the whole year. State level allocation was arrived at after adding sub-stratum level FSU allocation within each State.
Allocation for the State of Kerala

Rural sector: 4 sub-strata were formed within each district. Within each stratum × sub-stratum, 2 FSUs were allotted on quarterly basis. Thus, for the whole year, a total of 8 FSUs were allotted for each sub-stratum.

Urban sector: Quarterly, a minimum of 2 FSUs were allotted for each stratum × sub-stratum in the urban sector ensuring 8 FSUs for the whole year.

Selection of FSUs:
From each stratum/sub-stratum, required number of sample FSUs were selected by SRSWOR scheme independently on quarterly basis. Sample size for each of the quarters were kept exactly same. Since samples were selected independently for each quarter, there might be cases of repeat samples between quarters.

Formation of segment 9 and selection of hamlet-groups/ sub-blocks:
Proper identification of the FSU boundaries: The first task of the field investigators was to ascertain the exact boundaries of the sample FSU as per its identification particulars given in the sample list. For urban samples, the boundaries of each FSU could be identified by referring to the map for the ‘UFS Phase’ used for selection of FSUs.
Formation of Segment 9: All non-agricultural establishments having 10 or more workers in the entire FSU and operated at least one day during last 365 days preceding the day of survey (hereinafter to be called as ‘big establishments’) were listed and all the eligible units under coverage were surveyed. All the listed ‘big establishments’ (whether under coverage or not) constitute segment 9. All eligible establishments under coverage in segment 9 were surveyed.
Criterion for hamlet-group/sub-block formation: Having constituted segment 9 as stated above, it was determined whether listing to be done in the whole sample FSU or not. For this, approximate present population (P) and approximate total number of non-agricultural establishments (E) for the whole FSU should be ascertained first from knowledgeable persons. Depending upon the values of ‘P’ and ‘E’, it was divided into a suitable number (say, DP and DE) of ‘hamlet-groups’ in the rural sector and ‘sub-blocks’ in the urban sector as stated below. Final value of number of ‘hamlet-groups’ to be formed in the rural sector (or ‘sub-blocks’ to be formed in the urban sector), say ‘D’, was the higher of the two values ‘DP’ and ‘DE’ based on the dual criteria.
Selection of Establishment: Sample establishments from each SSS (excluding segment 9) were selected by SRSWOR.

Shorter version of the Sampling, may please refer to the text below:
The survey has been conducted following a multi-stage stratified sampling scheme where first stage units (FSUs) were census villages in rural2F and UFS (Urban Frame Survey) blocks in urban areas. The ultimate stage units (USU) were establishments for both the sectors. In the case of large FSUs, one intermediate stage of sampling has been done in the form of hamlet-groups in rural and sub-blocks in urban. The detail of sampling design followed in this survey has been placed in Appendix B of this report.