WTO brinkmanship

With grain silos spilling over, exports on the rise and an avowed market champion for prime minister, India’s threat to trash a global trade deal in the name of food security appears puzzling.

But government officials say Prime Minister Narendra Modi is prepared to brazen out global outrage to seize a historic chance to build a rural power base with his defence of farm subsidies and to banish memories of humiliating national food shortages.

Modi triumphed in a general election only two months ago, but polls are never far away in the world’s largest democracy and his Bharatiya Janata Party has its eyes already on new campaigns in the breadbowl states of Haryana and Maharashtra.

More than two-thirds of India’s 1.26 billion people live in rural areas and Modi’s party, traditionally stronger in cities, needs to secure more farmers’ votes to consolidate its power.

Party officials are confident New Delhi’s tough line at World Trade Organization talks in Geneva will accomplish that.

“A strong stance in Geneva sends a message to the farmers and poor people that unlike the (last government), Modi can take on the global powers to safeguard the interests of rural India,” said a party lawmaker, who declined to be named.

Modi’s government demanded a halt to a globally agreed timetable on new customs rules and said a permanent agreement on food stockpiling and subsidies must be in place at the same time, well ahead of a 2017 target agreed last December in Bali.

Critics say the brinkmanship threatens a deal that could add a trillion dollars to global wealth and create 21 million jobs.

With a key deadline on Thursday looking increasingly tricky, Modi risks alienating allies including the United States, whose top diplomat John Kerry is due in New Delhi on Wednesday for talks that will be held in the shadow of the dispute.

“We understand that a new government in office for fewer than 100 days is eager to evaluate any previous agreement and assure their electorate they are doing the right thing,” Diane Farrell, acting president of the U.S.-India Business Council told Reuters.

“At the same time, we have a high degree of hope that they will work with the WTO to find the appropriate accommodations  in order to sign on an agreement to the treaty,” she said.

ASSERTIVE INDIA

If India goes through with its threatened veto, critics say it would cripple WTO talks, hasten trade negotiations elsewhere – something that India opposes – and swiftly trigger trade disputes challenging India’s stockpiling policy.

But the gambit is paying off at home, where the opposition, industry chambers and many economists have welcomed India asserting itself more on the international stage.

“Modi, like any good strong leader, is committed to ‘India first’, that was his campaign,” said Samir Saran of the Observer Research Foundation think-tank.

India rejects international criticismby saying that it is responsible for the well-being of a quarter of the world’s poor and that its subsidy burden is vastly overestimated.

Current WTO rules limit subsidies to farmers in developing countries to 10 percent of the total value of agricultural produce based on 1986-88 prices.

New Delhi trade officials say India wants the formula to be adjusted for inflation and fears that if the Bali trade facilitation deal is signed by July 31 as planned, questions of stockpiling and subsidies will end up on the back burner.

But India has not formally raised the inflation-adjustment idea since the Bali summit in December.

India provides subsidised fertiliser and seeds to farmers and buys wheat and rice from them at fixed prices to boost output, build stocks for welfare plans and meet any emergency.

The incentives, coupled with good rains in recent years, have sent output soaring and state warehouses are overflowing.

As of July 1, India had 21.2 million tonnes of rice and 39.8 million tonnes of wheat stockpiled, more than double the respective buffer norms.

Yet India is determined to hold on to these vast reserves, partly due to painful memories of dependence on U.S. food aid in the 1960s. Also, as recently as 2006, India’s surpluses vanished after two years of drought and it was forced to import grains, sending global food prices rocketing.

Monsoon rains are expected to be below average this year.

“India cannot afford to rely on imports of rice and wheat as no one produces (enough) to feed a county of India’s size,” said a senior farm ministry official. “Two successive droughts in India will scare the world market and prices will surge in an unimaginable way.”

REFORMS STILL ON?

Government experts say nearly half of about 60 million tonnes of grains set aside for distribution at subsidized prices is siphoned off by corrupt officials, raising the question why India would burn bridges to defend such an inefficient system.

Still, some experts say India’s best choice might be simply to try to improve it since a change to cash transfer subsidies recommended by many economists would take years in a country with few rural banks.

India’s nation-sized states are working to fix the system of warehouses and ration shops that dates back to the famines of the 1960s, emulating simple solutions adopted by states which have dramatically cut waste and improved delivery.

“The public distribution system (PDS) has been making slow but steady improvement,” Peter Kenmore, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Representative in India, told Reuters.

“It is slow, sure, too slow, but basically the PDS is straightening out,” he said, adding that FAO’s position is that India’s food subsidies do not distort global markets.

RBI survey finds 47% of banking agents ‘untraceable’

The success of the government’s thrust on financial inclusion, which largely hinges on the role played by business correspondents (BCs), is faced with a harsh reality check.

A recent survey conducted by the RBI College for Agriculture Banking and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) reveals that not only were a substantive number of banking agents untraceable, but that even among those found to be working, a significant number have never conducted even a single transaction.

According to the survey, which tried to contact 2,358 agents across 15 large states in the period between September and November 2013, only 53 per cent could be reached and the remaining 47 per cent could not be reached.

Even among those who could be reached, 198 (16 per cent of that) agents have not done a single transaction till date. Experts say that there is more of an account opening exercise that is currently going on rather than the real task of focussing on financial inclusion.

While the government and the RBI claims that they have over 2.2 lakh banking agents, experts say that the survey suggests that the quality of the same is terrible.

“Our assessment is that the Ministry of Finance and the RBI have relied far too heavily on a target-driven approach to financial inclusion, whereby the RBI mandates that banks open a minimum number of accounts in poor and rural areas. This has led to ‘card rampages’, with banks aggressively opening accounts to meet their targets, but investing little in establishing high-quality agent networks that encourage account usage,” said Daniel Radcliffe, senior program officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is a member organisation of CGAP.

The survey also found out that the attrition rate of business correspondents is anywhere between 25 and 34 per cent per annum and that does raise a question mark on the sustainability of the existing model.

The agent activity is significantly lower in India relative to that in several African countries. While the median agent conducts only 9 transactions per day in India, those in Kenya do 62 and those in Tanzania and Uganda do 35 and 34 transactions, respectively.

In India the remuneration for the agents is also low and the median agent earns only $45 (Rs 2,700) per month, or $1.50 per day — well below the $5 break-even point seen in other markets. There are further issues in the same as the account opened through an agent takes 9 days for activation as compared to 3-5 minutes in East African markets.

The survey shows big loopholes in the existing network of agents of banking correspondents but in its exercise toextend banking services to remote areas the RBI recently permitted banks to appoint non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) as their business correspondents.

BCs are hired by banks to offer banking services in remote areas where they do not have branches and therefore the BCs act as agents of the parent bank. While RBI had allowed banks to use BCs to organise a network of customer service points in 2006, the number of banking agents grew to over 2.2 lakh till 2013. In a bid to further expand the scope of BCs, the Nachiket Mor committee had earlier this year suggested to include new entities as BCs.

For schools to be safe

On December 17, 2012, exactly a day after the Delhi gangrape case that shook the country, a three-year-old girl was taken to the toilet of  her play school in Delhi and raped by the owner-principal’s husband. She is not the only child violated in a space considered to be the safest space for children after their homes — the school. This ugly reality has come to light once again with a six-year-old being sexually abused in a school in Bangalore. Every report specified that it took place at an “elite school”, as if such incidents only take place among the poor and this was new. The reality is that child sexual abuse cuts across class, religion, education or ethnicity. It can happen anywhere, including within families. It is imperative that we recognise this and put checks and balances in place.

It is not as if sexual abuse in schools is a new phenomenon. If we look back at our own school days, there was likely a member of the staff who made us uncomfortable. Our discomfort was unaddressed then and this is the case even today, due to a conspiracy of silence around sexual violence and abuse. Abuse is reported even less in the case of schools because of the power relations between educational institutions and students, more so if the parents are poor and illiterate. So we must welcome that some parents are coming out to complain.

It is not easy for parents and children to find the courage to complain, given the cycle of violence they face. Many child survivors and their families are asked by landlords to vacate their homes. Instead of cooperating with children and helping them cope with the trauma, children are subtly pushed out of school. Changing schools is even harder. Traumatised by the abuse, most survivors fall behind in academics, making admission to another school difficult unless the principal is apprised of the circumstances and admission sought on sympathetic grounds, hoping confidentiality will be respected. The system of investigation and judicial process expects the child to recollect and repeat the sequence of events several times, leading to re-victimisation. Little surprise then that parents and child victims choose to keep quiet.

Despite new laws and stringent punishment, there is an increase in sexual crime and little deterrence. For instance, two years on, the December 17 case is still to be decided. We are told that the courts set up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) are “special courts”, while those under the criminal amendment act of 2012are “fast-track courts”. Are special courts not meant to be fast track?

Poor investigation by the police, lack of adequate victim and witness protection, intrusive and unreliable medical examination, lack of special public prosecutors, poor quality of legal aid and, most importantly, a lack of courts having exclusive charge of POCSO cases are important factors affecting prosecution and resulting in poor conviction rates. Justice becomes more difficult as children do not have the proper legal vocabulary to express their agony, more so if the child has a disability.

With increased reporting of such incidents and the fear of a loss of reputation, school managements shy away from either admitting or taking responsibility. In many ways, child sexual abuse in schools is custodial rape, and hence an aggravated offence. This is clearly recognised by the POCSO act, which has a clause for mandatory reporting, supposedly introduced to address the reluctance of institutions to take responsibility. There must be mandatory standard protective protocols, whose violation would lead to penal action, to make schools safe.

The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) developed a set of guidelines for the prevention of child abuse last year. It lays down what schools must do to protect children from sexual abuse through protocols that need to be followed for the recruitment of staff, and details the capacity-building and child protection standards that need to be in place. Primary among them is the framing of a child protection policy applicable to all persons employed by the institution and even visitors. Most importantly, it calls for the setting up of a complaints mechanisms for children, parents and guardians, and appropriate training and orientation for them on the institution’s protection policy and mechanisms to complain.

Rule 31 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules, 2007 requires that every school and other educational institutions abide by guidelines issued by the Centre and the states for the prevention of sexual abuse of children. The Delhi government framed its own rules in 2009, as have some others. On February 13, 2013, in HAQ: Centre for Child Rights vs Union of India, the Delhi High Court directed the state to frame guidelines for effective implementation of Rule 31. Accordingly, the guidelines developed by the DCPCR were placed before the court. One year later, in February, further direction had to be sought from the court to ensure the notification of these guidelines by the lieutenant governor, and their circulation among stakeholders. Yet, most schools in Delhi remain unaware of them.

It is also time that we stopped being squeamish about sex and recognised that if children have to protect themselves, they need age-appropriate information. This has to come from both home and school.

How to be smart,JNNURM

At A time when the contours of the new scheme for 100 smart cities are being decided, it is important to look at what went wrong with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), launched in 2005 to improve infrastructure and governance in cities. With an overall investment of more than Rs 1 lakh crore, it covered both small towns and big cities. Amid all the criticism of the scheme, it is imperative to look at what went right and what didn’t.

One of the major drawbacks of the JNNURM was that it focused too much on big cities, directing fewer funds towards small and medium ones. In principle, it was meant to include all cities/ towns as per the 2001 Census. One of the things it did right was provide funds for class V and VI towns, which have populations of less than 10,000 people. Though their share in resources was dismal, it started a process that could have been taken forward in the future.

Another criticism was that access to JNNURM funds was linked to the achievement of mandatory reforms. Many feel this kind of incentivising did not work because a number of states and cities refused to comply. The Centre had no choice but to release funds after being given assurances on paper. However, many states did comply. As of January 2014, states like Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu had completed 19 out of the 23 reforms. Others like J&K, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal had completed 16. Bigger cities like Delhi did not perform as well and managed to complete only 15 reforms but still received the highest funding under the JNNURM.

The constant dependence of urban local bodies (ULBs) on state or parastatal agencies was another criticism. The JNNURM was supposed to encourage the role of ULBs in project preparation and implementation. However, in practice, the role of the ULB was reduced to that of quiet spectator in some cases and appointing agency in others. The funding pattern did encourage cost-sharing between the Centre, state and ULBs. However, in some cases, smaller towns were unable to contribute their share of the project cost.

Underutilisation of funds was another issue. Since the smaller ULBs are not financially independent, implementing reforms can be difficult, which leads to delays in the release of funds. Also, since a number of smaller ULBs lack capacity, the funds, even when released, were not enough to realise their potential or utilised optimally. This leads to a vicious cycle of poor performance stemming from poor capacity and lack of funds.

Whilethe JNNURM is likely to be discontinued, the new concept of “smart cities” doesn’t hit the nail on the head either. As enunciated in the Union budget speech, the development of satellite towns and modernisation of existing mid-sized cities seems to be the plan. But this lacks consideration for small towns — class III to VI — that have populations lower than 49,999 and which account for 29 per cent of the total urban population. Many of these towns may not be near big cities but may actually possess enormous growth potential. Consider this, between 2001 and 2011, the population living in class I (1,00,000 and above) and class II (50,000-99,999) towns has increased by 27 and 20 per cent respectively. Whereas the population in class III (20,000-49,999) and class IV (10,000-19,999) towns has increased by 40 and 41 per cent respectively. Further, the population in class V (5,000-9,999) and class VI towns (less than 5,000) has doubled. This increase in small-town populations needs to be backed with investment to sustain urbanisation as it will contribute majorly to economic clusters.

The investment allocation for the 100 smart cities project, Rs 7,060 crore, is 6 per cent of the total estimated investment of the JNNURM. As of March 2012, the JNNURM covered 1,274 small towns and 65 big cities. In terms of both investment and coverage, the JNNURM was a much larger scheme. It had a definitive structure that got lost in implementation. What is needed is capacity building at the local level. Until ULBs are empowered to carry out their functions properly, no new scheme can achieve its objectives. When a large number of our cities struggle with even the delivery of basic services, creating technologically advanced cities may not be attacking the root of the problem. What is required is the equitable distribution of funds and resources to small and medium cities instead of identifying a few smart cities.

So many regulators

Much has been written about the leanness of Narendra Modi’s cabinet, constituted on the mantra of “minimum government, maximum governance”. This shift may mean a shrinking government, but it also means a changing role for it. In several markets, government intervention is necessary to enhance market performance. Government intervention affecting industry structure and behaviour takes two forms: regulation and antitrust.

Regulatory agencies and antitrust authorities are only two of the several institutional players defining the competitive environment. Regulators define ex ante a set of permissible business conduct for operators by regulating entry conditions, licensing requirements, tariff standards, access, control over price, quantity and quality, etc. Antitrust enforcers, in contrast, check ex post that anti-competitive conduct as identified by competition law is not pursued.

This diarchy of economic regulation is meant to be complementary and ensure the structural and behavioural competitiveness of the Indian economy. However, sectoral regulators, taking advantage of their overlapping jurisdiction with the Competition Commission of India (CCI), the antitrust agency, have continuously tried to chip at its mandate. This has resulted in regulatory parallelism amongst sectoral regulators and the CCI.

For instance, in August 2012, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) introduced draft regulations to grant itself the power to regulate anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position and anti-competitive mergers (all in the CCI’s domain) in the electricity sector. Such efforts would virtually eliminate the CCI’s regulatory oversight, creating

a parallel and conflicting competition regime for the electricity sector. Further, the CERC’s exercise took place without any enabling legislation or legislative mandate, and was rooted using a residual clause under the CERC’s parent legislation, the Electricity Act, 2003. Interestingly, the CERC, which was created in 2003, only chose to legislate on this after the CCI had been made fully functional. The CERC has the mandate to promote competition in electricity markets by creating appropriate competitive and efficient market structures. However, it cannot usurp the jurisdiction of the CCI to ex-post regulate distortion of such competitive markets through such conduct.

The RBI has also attempted to curb the CCI’s regulatory jurisdiction. It has successfully lobbied the government to exempt mergers of failing banks from the purview of the CCI’s antitrust scrutiny, and wants compulsory mergers to be exempted from competition scrutiny. This is in spite of the fact that the Competition Act specifically mandates the CCI to consider “failing business” as a factor while evaluating mergers. Therefore, the exemption to failing banks is an exercise of regulatory redundancy. The RBI is the prudential regulator of banks, limiting their risk-taking, ensuring the safety of depositors’ funds and stability of the financial sector, while the CCI’s review of bank mergers is aimed at ensuring thatsuch mergers do not cause an appreciable adverse anti-competitive effect on the financial sector. The CCI is not a prudential regulator and the RBI is not a competition regulator, and both are required to complement each other.

The government intervened on behalf of the CCI to restrict such sectoral backlash and has proposed amendments to the Competition Act, which make it mandatory for sectoral regulators to refer to the CCI if the decision taken by such sectoral regulator raises any competition issue. However, such amendments have failed to see the light of day.

Defendants of anticompetitive complaints before the CCI have often taken advantage of such opportunistic behaviour to seek judicial intervention on the ground that the sectoral regulator and not the CCI has jurisdiction. The judiciary has also been less diligent in curbing such posturing and on numerous occasions, has stayed proceedings before the CCI on the pretext that such proceedings would allegedly impinge upon the regulatory jurisdiction of the applicable sectoral regulator. For example, the CCI has been stopped from investigating alleged anticompetitive practices of three state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) at the behest of the Delhi High Court, which has stayed multiple CCI proceedings against them.

In two separate actions before the CCI, the OMCs were charged with alleged acts of price collusion and denial of market access to private players. The CCI has the exclusive statutory mandate to investigate and regulate acts of cartelisation and price collusion; however, the OMCs approached the Delhi High Court and successfully stayed the proceedings on the pretext that the case fell under the jurisdiction of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB). Such efforts to oust the CCI’s jurisdiction have led to regulatory confusion and impeded its efforts to enhance competition.

The Supreme Court in Subrata Roy Sahara vs Union of India lamented the posturing antics of litigants aimed at forum shopping. It has stated that such antics result in cases “which ought to have been settled in no time at all, before the first court of incidence, [being] prolonged endlessly, for years and years, and from court to court, upto the highest court”. This message should not be lost on the high courts which, by admitting competition matters, contribute to prolonging a pattern of illegitimate claims that should be ideally settled by the CCI.

The new government needs to focus its reform agenda to address such regulatory duplicity to create a more enabling business environment for industry. A governance reform agenda built on the expectation that regulated markets will deliver growth requires such reforms to trickle down to the new-age independent sectoral regulators. Without eliminating regulatory chaos, delivering on the expectations of India’s polity will be difficult.

Branding the babu,changing role of Civil servant

Narendra Modi’s style of functioning as prime minister has evoked mixed responses. There is praise for and euphoria over several announcements — downsizing the council of ministers, setting targets for infrastructure development, rationalising departmental responsibilities and demanding that ministers find bilateral solutions to departmental entanglements, for instance. But there is also unease over some developments. The first is the fear of excessive centralism, which stems from the belief that centralisation kills democratic decision-making.

What is seldom understood is that all governments operate through the bureaucracy, which is an amalgam of individuals who constantly require policy-level direction, leadership and evaluation of outcomes. At one time, ministers and secretaries provided that direction. But as disproportionate influence began to be exercised by powerful political associates, accountability became increasingly diffused. Many departments faced major obstacles due to an absence of leadership. With the growing complexity of government, a clear message from the top was needed to remove logjams but, over the last few years, the top political executive simply did not intervene. The bureaucracy was often led by secretaries who always had one eye on post-retirement sinecures or a better posting. Either way, ministers were never held answerable for taking a one-sided view, even when this was publicised through leaks and interviews. Secretaries were generally loath to spoil their copy-books, and discouraged enthusiasm and originality lest it rock the boat. The result was inertia.

Perhaps for the very first time in decades, Prime Minister Modi’s interaction with the bureaucracy and the instructions he has given have signalled the need for transformation. No longer would proximity to the minister and other power centres provide insurance for the future. Status-quoist secretaries can no longer sit on the fence looking busy. They will have to display and encourage initiative because their own future will henceforth be decided by entirely new yardsticks. By pinning down the secretaries, Modi has extracted a commitment on the main concerns they have highlighted themselves. Of even greater significance is the fact that reaching political consensus is once again the minister’s responsibility — the alibis of groups of ministers and empowered committees having been ripped apart.

While the over-centralism concern can be met thus, not all reforms are easy to explain. For instance, what prompted the government to disallow any officer who had worked with a Central minister at any point over the last 10 years to join the personal staff of a new NDA minister? Since the 10-year period coincides with the UPA’s tenure, the purport of the order has left no doubt in most minds. Although itonly dittoed an old department of personnel and training order about the duration of postings with ministers, its reiteration, covering the precise period of UPA rule, has unwittingly made the loyalties of officers who worked directly for the previous regime suspect. The erstwhile personal staff have come to be seen as “Congressis” or “UPA-wallahs”. Concomitantly, the order has automatically converted the new incumbents in the ministerial offices into “BJP” or “NDA-wallahs”. This strikes at the root of the civil service rules, which draw their strength from the Constitution and eschew any politicisation of the service, espousing the need for a politically neutral bureaucracy. So instead of restoring and fortifying that much-needed objective, the 10-year embargo has created an artificial division within the civil service by branding some officers with a particular political dispensation. If officers deliberately choose to become politically aligned as a result of this, it would be an unhappy development.

Related to this is the question of equity: can a bureaucrat who has had a relatively short stint in the personal office of a minister, often after having been hand-picked from within the ministry to assist the minister, be equated with a bureaucrat who has tracked a minister from one ministry to another, advancing in influence with each new reshuffle? Everyone inside the bureaucracy knows who was up to what and the modus operandi employed. Painting both kinds of officers with one brush has been unfair to some. In the ultimate analysis, personal staff officers hardly contribute to making big policy or change the way government works. Upright former members of a minister’s personal office should not be discriminated against now when their names come up for Central deputation or key postings.

Just as the PM has constrained the ministers’ choice of personal staff, he must also disallow them from handpicking secretaries or even joint secretaries and additional secretaries — something that had become a regular phenomenon ever since coalition dharma ruined the bureaucracy. The centralisation of establishment systems would achieve what umpteen commissions and committees have been urging for decades but never succeeded in achieving. Simply put, political interference in the management of the senior bureaucracy still needs to be eliminated. How far the cabinet secretary is able to withstand individual pressure from ministers remains to be seen. Equally, how the PM exercises a check on civil servants who manipulate postings remains a question.

A word of caution is also needed, lest miracles are expected from the Modi dispensation. Only a fifth of the IAS and other services actually function in the ministries of the Central government. In our federal system, the PM’s writ will have limited impact on the functioning of state government bureaucracies through whom the bulk of government work is carried out. State government programmes and services are aligned to policies announced by chief ministers and draw nourishment from state budgets. When CMs demand honesty and hard work, the civil service responds. But when CMs are surrounded by influence-peddlers, officers look to benefit from proximity to suchelements. The PM can do little to change this unfortunate trend because officers are governed by the state cadre authority, which comes directly under the CM.

The PM’s style has drawn much enthusiasm from the Central government’s bureaucracy. But now the real test lies in being able to distinguish the achievers from the drones, and giving the former the freedom to deliver.

Provisional Results of Sixth Economic Census

Dr. Pronab Sen, Chairman, National Statistical Commission and Dr. T.C.A. Anant, Chief Statistician of India and Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, here today jointly released the provisional results of Sixth Economic Census in New Delhi at a function attended by officers from Central Ministries/Departments and State and UT Governments.  The Central Statistics Office (CSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) conducted the Sixth Economic Census during January, 2013 to April, 2014 in collaboration with Directorates of Economics and Statistics in all the States and Union Territories.         Economic Census provides detailed information on operational and economic variables, activity wise, of the establishments of the country including their distribution at all-India, State, district and village/ward levels for comprehensive analysis of the structure of the economy (micro, macro, regional levels) and for benchmark purposes. The database also serves as a sampling frame for drawing samples for socio economic surveys by Governments and research organizations.         The first Economic Census was conducted in 1977 covering only non-agricultural establishments employing at least one hired worker on a fairly regular basis. The second and third Economic Censuses were conducted in 1980 and 1990 along with house listing operations of 1981 and 1991 Population Censuses respectively. These two Economic Censuses covered all agricultural and non-agricultural establishments excepting those engaged in crop production and plantation. The fourth and Fifth Economic Censuses were carried out in 1998 and 2005 respectively with the same coverage.         The Sixth Economic Census had also the same coverage as that of Fifth Economic Census. However, establishments engaged in public administration, defence and compulsory social security activities have been excluded as data pertaining to them are available with the Government through administrative records and also due to the difficulties faced in collecting information from such establishments during the Fifth Economic Census. The Sixth Economic Census separately identified handicraft/handloom establishments for the first time. Further, enumeration blocks (EBs) of Population Census, 2011 have been used as the primary geographical units for collection of data. This would facilitate the linking of Census 2011 database with that of Sixth Economic Census at the lower geographical levels like EBs and wards.       The provisional results are based on information compiled using Schedule 6B i.e., ‘Establishment Abstract’ of Sixth Economic Census. Provisional key results of Sixth Economic Census in the form of a statement and Charts are enclosed. All India Report containing provisional results of Sixth Economic Census is available in the MoSPI website: mospi.nic.in. Provisional Results of Sixth Economic Census [Excluding crop production, public administration, defence & compulsory social security services activities] S. No. Item Rural India Urban India India 1. a) Number of establishments (in 000) 35,023 23,447 58,470 b) Percentage share 59.9% 40.1% 100.0% 2. a) Number of establishments (in 000)      i) Outside household without fixed structure 7,333 4,646 11,979      ii)  Handicraft/ Handloom 1,294 899 2,193 b) Percentage share in total establishments      i) Outside household without fixed structure 20.94% 19.81% 20.49%      ii) Handicraft/ Handloom 3.69% 3.83% 3.75% 3. Growth rate (%) in number of establishments over Fifth Economic Census (2005)* 39.28% 45.57% 41.73% 4. a) Number of persons employed (in 000) 66,289 61,419 127,708 b) Percentage share 51.9% 48.1% 100.0% 5. Percentage of hired workers in the total persons employed 34.67% 57.59% 45.69% 6. Percentage of total female workers in the total persons employed 30.90% 19.80% 25.56% 7. Growth rate (%) in total employment over Fifth Economic Census (2005)* 31.59% 37.46% 34.35% * The intervening period of fieldwork between Fifth and Sixth Economic Censuses differ from State/UT to State/UT.