28.61% business establishments operate without office

About 28.61 percent (5.24 lakh) of the 18.3 lakh business establishments in Orissa operate without premises.

This is revealed from the draft 5th Economic Census in Orissa for the year 2005.

While 10.62 percent (1.94 lakh ) of the total business establishments operated seasonally, 89.38 percent (16.36 lakh) were perennial establishments. Besides, 81.56 percent (14.93 lakh) establishments operated without power or fuel, says the document.

According to the draft census, 92.82 percent of the establishments in the state were under private ownership. The report is expected to be published by the Orissa government soon.

The establishments which were surveyed included workshops, manufacturing plants, shops, offices, firms, schools, hospitals and places of worship among others. Their number increased by an average of 3.75 percent every year from 14.5 lakh in 1998 to 18.3 lakh in 2005.

Similarly, the employment in these establishments went by 2.82 percent annually from 30.95 lakh to 37.06 lakh during this period. The growth of agricultural establishments was 8.58 percent while the non-agricultureal establishments grew at a rate of 3.31 percent.

The draft census was sponsored by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO). It said, out of the total 18.3 lakh establishments in Orissa, 79.04 percent (14.47 lakh) were in the rural areas and 20.96 percent (3.83 lakh) in the urban areas. While 70.48 percent ( 12.9 lakh) of them were own account establishments (OAE) operated by individuals, the remaining 29.52 percent (5.4 lakh) had hired workers to run the establishments.

The census states, 96.39 percent of the establishments were run by 1 to 5 persons and 2.55 percent were run by 6 to 9 persons. Only 1.06 percent of these units were run by 10 or more workers. The annual growth of employment in these establishments from 1998 to 2005 was higher at 2.82 percent compared to 2.31 between 1990 (3rd census) and 1998 (4th census).

However, the average employment per establishments declined from 2.39 persons in 1990 to 2.13 in 1998 and further to 2.02 in 2005.

Another distorting feature is, despite various legislations brought out by the state and the Centre to prevent child labour, there were about 1.13 lakh child labour in the state in 2005.

This includes 98,000 children working in rural establishments and 15,000 in urban establishments. A district wise break up shows Mayurbhanj district had the highest share (8.63 percent) in the number of establishments and highest percentage of workers (9.18 percent) engaged in these units. Ganjam, with 8.54 percent share in number of establishments and 7.99 percent share in workers enagaged, was placed second. Cuttack district, with a share of 7.54 percent in the number of establishments and 7.24 percent of the total workers, was placed third among the Orissa districts. The State Level Co-ordination Committee headed by the Development Commissioner, T K Misra has approved the draft census report, sources said.

It may be noted, the census work was conducted throughout the state covering 314 blocks and 104 Municipal corporations, Municipalities and Notified Area Councils (NACs) spread over 30 districts of the state. The data processing work was completed in April 2007 and final data of the 5th census was sent to the Union government for approval in August 2007.

The final data was received from the Union government after approval in January 2008 and the preparation of the state level report is underway since then.