Informal Economy Shrinks From 52% to 15-20% of GDP in 3 Years: SBI Report

A number of measures taken since 2016 have contributed to the high formalisation rate, as per the SBI report.

Hyderabad: Onion sellers at a wholesale market in Hyderabad on 7 December 2019.

(Photo: IANS)

India’s informal economy has contracted to around 15-20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as compared to 52 percent three years ago, a report released by the State Bank of India on Friday, 29 October, indicates.

A number of measures taken by the government since 2016, which accelerated the digitisation of the economy, have contributed to the high formalisation rate, as per the report.

"The Government has made many efforts for formalisation in the last couple of years. For example, one of the sources to analyse the extent of formalisation is the monthly EPFO payroll report which provides data on establishments remitting first ECR (Electronic Challan-cum-Return) in a particular month. Based on this data we estimate almost 36.6 lakh jobs have been formalised till Aug’21."

SBI Report

"Next is the E-Shram portal, which is the first-ever national database of unorganised workers. 5.3 crore unorganised workers (Oct 27/ and counting) have registered in the first two months after its launch, with 62% of workers belonging to the age-group of 18-40 years and 92.0% registered workers having monthly income of less than Rs 10,000," the report observes.

Data shows that the states that accounted for a major chunk of the total registration were West Bengal, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh.

Moreover, while workers from the agricultural sector accounted for 55 percent of the registrations, those from the construction sector contributed to 13 percent of the registrations.