National Sample Survey Office

Source: NSSO
GS II: Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate

Overview

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, is responsible for conducting large-scale sample surveys, in diverse fields, on an India basis.

• Primary data is collected regularly through nationwide household surveys on various socio-economic subjects, the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) under the Collection of Statistics Act and Enterprise Surveys, as a follow-up of the economic census.
• Besides these surveys, NSSO collects data on rural and urban prices; and plays a significant role in the improvement of crop statistics through supervision of the area enumeration and crop estimation surveys of the state agencies.
• It also maintains a frame of urban area units for drawing samples for socio-economic surveys in urban areas.
• The NSSO functions with requisite autonomy, in matters relating to data collection, processing and publication/dissemination of results/data based on its surveys.
• It does so under the overall guidance and supervision of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) which appoints working groups/technical committees comprising both official and non-official members on different subjects for the finalisation of survey instruments for its surveys and methodologies for the same.
• The Director General (Survey) is responsible for overall coordination and supervision of all activities of NSSO and is assisted by four Additional Director Generals, each one being in charge of separate divisions responsible for four distinct aspects of such large-scale surveys relating to their designing and planning, fieldwork, data processing and coordination.