It takes 130 districts out of around 770 to account for 50% of India’s total informal sector establishments outside agriculture and construction. On the other hand, it takes 121 districts to account for half of the sector’s workers and just 95 districts to account for 50% of the total GVA of the sector. These statistics are from the district-level report of the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), conducted in 2025 and released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Thursday.
The district-level statistics underline a key insight already evident from the country-level ASUSE data. There are a large number of informal sector enterprises in the country: 79 million in 2025. They account for a large number of Indian workers: 128 million in 2025, or 36% of all non-agricultural workers. However, most of these enterprises add little value to the economy: generating ₹19,92,577 crore in 2025, or 8% of India’s total nominal non-agricultural GVA. The district-level statistics just add another level of geographic detail on these numbers. They also show that some of the districts with the largest number of such establishments are not million-plus cities.
To be sure, these district-level estimates ought to be analysed with some scepticism. While the NSO has published data for 757 of 770 districts in the sampling frame (which HT increased to 760 by adding the UT-level data for Delhi, Chandigarh, and Lakshadweep), data for most districts has a large error margin. The error margin for number of establishments and workers is within 10% of the estimate for only 78 and 48 districts, respectively, although it is within 20% for 495 and 435 districts.
The highest number of informal establishments, according to the report, are in North 24 Parganas, Delhi (taken as one district), South 24 Parganas, Kolkata, and Surat. North and South 24 Parganas are Kolkata’s neighbouring districts. The five districts account for 1.66 million, 1.03 million, 1.03 million, 884,000 and 851,000 establishments, respectively.
The districts with the highest number of workers are almost the same, but in a different order: Delhi, North 24 Parganas, Surat, Ranga Reddy, a district neighbouring Hyderabad in Telangana, and Kolkata. They have 2.2 million, 2.1 million, 1.7 million, 1.7 million and 1.4 million workers in the sector, respectively.
In terms of GVA generated, North 24 Parganas slips to sixth position. The highest GVA is generated in Delhi, Ranga Reddy, Surat, Pune and Mumbai Suburban districts. Pune and Mumbai Suburban are in Maharashtra. They generate GVA of ₹55,289 crore, ₹45,983 crore, ₹37,399 crore, ₹28,709 crore and ₹27,357 crore, respectively.
While only around 13% of such establishments hire workers, the report also gives emoluments per hired worker. These are highest in a completely different set of districts: Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka, Ajmer in Rajasthan, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Kannur in Kerala. Annual emoluments in these districts range from ₹4.6 lakh in Dehradun to ₹2.5 lakh in Kannur.
The exact ranking of these districts is of limited use because the error margin for these estimates is 54% in Dehradun and 30% in Kannur.
Among the districts that rank high on these indicators, North and South 24 Parganas, Ranga Reddy, Dehradun, Dakshina Kannada, Ajmer and Kannur are not among the million-plus cities for which the NSO published a report earlier.