Release of the Annual Survey of Industries (2024-25) results

1. At a Glance

• The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) is the principal source of industrial statistics in India. It covers the organised (registered) manufacturing sector, repair services, gas and water supply, and cold storage. [3]
• ASI 2024-25 covers April 2024 to March 2025. It shows broad-based growth: Output +7.81%, Employment +7.19%, Emoluments +12.08%, Invested capital +11.10%, GVA +9.59%. [1]
• The data feeds National Accounts Statistics (GDP compilation) and policymaking. That makes it core material for GS-III (industrial growth, employment, regional disparity). [1]
• It is conducted under the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 and the Rules made under it in 2011. [3]

2. Why in the News

• On 30 September 2026, MoSPI released the ASI 2024-25 results through a factsheet and press note (PIB Delhi). [1]
• Field work for ASI 2024-25 ran from October 2025 to June 2026. [1]
• The previous round (ASI 2023-24) was released on 27 August 2025. Its field work ran from October 2024 to June 2025. [2]

3. Background & Evolution

• After 1930: the Government of India ran a voluntary scheme to collect industrial data. [3]
• 1942: the Industrial Statistics Act was enacted on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Labour. [3]
• 1945: the Directorate of Industrial Statistics (DIS) was set up under the Ministry of Commerce. [3]
• 1946: DIS launched the Census of Manufacturing Industries (CMI). It covered only 29 of 63 industry groups and 11 States, and ran annually until 1958. [3]
• 1949: the first Sample Survey of Manufacturing Industries (SSMI) was held on the recommendation of the National Income Committee (1949). The Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta did the tabulation. It ran until 1958. [3]
• 1951: the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) was set up under the Cabinet Secretariat. [3]
• 1956: the 1942 Act was repealed after the Collection of Statistics Act, 1953 was passed. [3]
• 1959: the Collection of Statistics (Central) Rules, 1959 provided for the ASI, which replaced both CMI and SSMI. [3]
• 1960: the ASI was launched, with 1959 as the reference year. It has run every year since, except 1972. [3]
• ASI 1998-99 onwards: CEA-registered electricity units and departmental units (railway workshops, RTC workshops, Govt Mints, etc.) were dropped from coverage because other data sources exist for them. [3]
• 2012-13: a new sampling design was adopted after approval by the Standing Committee on Industrial Statistics (SCIS). [3]
• Current statutory base: Collection of Statistics Act, 2008, and Rules, 2011. [3]

4. Core Static Facts

Key numbers, ASI 2024-25 vs 2023-24 [1]

Derived (my calculation from Table 3 of [1]):

• GVA/Output ratio is about 16.3%.
• Workers make up about 79% of total persons engaged.
• Emoluments are about 29.8% of GVA.

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• GVA growth (9.59%) outpaced output growth (7.81%). Input grew more slowly (₹12,869 bn → ₹13,830 bn), which points to better value addition per unit of output. [1]
• Invested capital grew 11.10% and fixed capital grew from ₹4,624 bn to ₹5,112 bn. This signals continued capital formation, though Net Profit growth (7.73%) lagged Net Income growth (9.68%). [1]
• Five industries together contributed >45% of manufacturing GVA: Basic metals, Motor vehicles, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, and Food products. [1]

Employment / Labour

• Persons engaged grew 7.19%, from 1.96 crore to 2.10 crore. [1]
• Emoluments grew 12.08%, faster than employment, so average pay per person rose. [1]
• Wages to workers rose from ₹336.0 bn to ₹379.8 bn. [1]

Regional / Federal

• GVA concentration: Maharashtra (15.92%), Gujarat (14.10%), Tamil Nadu (10.90%), Karnataka (7.31%) and UP (6.64%) together hold >54% of GVA and 53.30% of establishments. [1]
• Employment concentration: Tamil Nadu (14.99%), Maharashtra (13.08%), Gujarat (12.99%), UP (8.72%) and Haryana (6.44%) together hold about 56% of employment. [1]
• Tamil Nadu has the most factories (41,221) but ranks 3rd in GVA. Maharashtra is 1st in GVA and emoluments (17.64%). This gap suggests differences in labour intensity versus capital intensity between States. [1]
• UP increased its share of establishments (8.51% → 9.35%) and employment (8.30% → 8.72%), while its GVA share fell slightly (6.80% → 6.64%). [1]

Administrative / Statistical governance

• The frame depends on State CIF registries. "Deleted factories" (units selected but not found in the field) are a known limitation. [3]
• Being a statutory survey makes responding compulsory. The data supports National Accounts and the needs of other ministries. [1][3]

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• 27 Aug 2025: ASI 2023-24 results released as a press note plus seven website tables. [2]
• Oct 2024 to Jun 2025: ASI 2023-24 field work. Central sample of 83,620 units (63,981 Census, 19,639 Sample). [2]
• Oct 2025 to Jun 2026: ASI 2024-25 field work. [1]
• 30 Sep 2026: ASI 2024-25 results released (factsheet). [1]

7. Prelims Hooks

• The ASI was launched in 1960 with reference year 1959. It was not conducted in 1972. [3]
• The ASI replaced the CMI (1946) and the SSMI (1949). [3]
• Current legal basis: Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 and Rules, 2011. [3]
• Coverage threshold: ≥10 workers with power / ≥20 without power, under Sec 2m(i)/(ii), Factories Act 1948. [3]
• Bidi & cigar units are covered under the 1966 Act. [3]
• Defence establishments and computer services are excluded from the ASI. [3]
• Sampling frame source: Chief Inspector of Factories in each State. [3]
• Census-scheme States: Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, A&N Islands. [3]
• ASI 2024-25: Tamil Nadu is 1st in number of factories (41,221), then Gujarat (33,084) and Maharashtra (27,379). [1]
• ASI 2024-25: Maharashtra is 1st in GVA share (15.92%). [1]
• ASI 2024-25: Tamil Nadu is 1st in employment share (14.99%). [1]
• Top 5 industries give >45% of manufacturing GVA; Basic metals is listed first. [1]
• Invested capital = Fixed capital + Physical working capital. It grew 11.10% in 2024-25. [1]
• Total persons engaged in registered manufacturing: ~2.10 crore (2024-25). [1]

8. What the 7% Job Growth Does and Does Not Tell Us

• Most new jobs came from factories getting bigger, not from new factories
• Factories in operation grew only about 2.6% (2,12,990 → 2,18,543). Persons engaged grew 7.19% [1].
• So the average working factory went from about 92 to about 96 persons (my calculation from [1]).

• This means existing units are hiring more. Very few new units are opening.

• About one in five registered factories is not working

• 2,66,931 factories are registered, but only 2,18,543 are in operation. About 48,000 (18%) are closed or idle [1].

• The share was the same (18%) in 2023-24 [1]. The headline 'factories +2.64%' counts registrations, not working units.

• Some 'new jobs' may be old jobs that became visible

• The ASI only counts units on the State Chief Inspector of Factories (CIF) lists [3].
• When a small unit crosses 10 workers (with power) or 20 (without power), it gets registered and enters the ASI for the first time [3].
• Its workers then show up as 'new' jobs, even if they were working there before. So part of the 7.19% can be formalisation (informal jobs moving into the registered sector), not new hiring.

• To separate the two, the ASI figure must be read with PLFS (a household survey of all workers) and ASUSE (the survey of unregistered units).

• The headline does not tell us how secure these jobs are

• The figures carried in this note do not split workers into permanent and contract staff [1].
• A job count can rise while more of those jobs become short-term. Check the detailed ASI tables for the contract-worker share before calling this 'good-quality' job growth.

9. Did Workers' Pay Really Rise? Reading the Wage Numbers

• Pay per worker rose about 5%, not 12%
• The 12.08% figure is total emoluments (total pay to all staff). It rose partly because there are 7% more people [1].
• Pay per person engaged rose only about 4.6% (1.1208 ÷ 1.0719, my calculation from [1]).

• Wages to workers rose from 336.0 to 379.8, while workers rose from 1.55 crore to 1.67 crore [1]. Wage per worker rose about 5.3%.

• In rupees, a factory worker earns about ₹19,000 a month

• That is about ₹2.28 lakh a year in 2024-25, up from about ₹2.16 lakh (my calculation from [1]).

• Note: the wage figures in section 5 say '₹ bn'. They only make sense as ₹ thousand crore, the same unit as GVA. Read them that way.

• Part of this rise is only price rise

• ASI results are normally given in the rupees of each year (current prices), not adjusted for inflation.
• If prices rose about 4–5% in the year, a 5% pay rise leaves the worker only a little better off.

• So 'emoluments grew faster than employment' does not prove that workers' real living standards rose much.

• Workers get a smaller slice than their numbers

• Workers are about 79% of persons engaged [1].
• The rest are managers, supervisors and office staff. The ASI counts them separately from 'workers' [1].
• Maharashtra has 13.08% of employment but 17.64% of emoluments [1]. Where more high-paid staff sit, average pay looks higher. The average can rise even if shop-floor pay stays flat.

10. Profits, Capital and Productivity: The Less Happy Numbers

• Each rupee of capital is producing a little less
• Invested capital grew 11.10%, but GVA grew 9.59% and output 7.81% [1].
• So GVA per rupee of capital fell about 1.4%. Output per rupee of capital fell about 3% (my calculation from [1]).

• Heavy new investment often takes time to start earning. But if this continues, it means capital is being used less well.

• Workers' share of value added rose; the owners' share fell

• GVA per person rose about 2.2%, but pay per person rose about 4.6% (my calculation from [1]).
• Emoluments were about 29.8% of GVA in 2024-25 [1]. Working back, this was about 29.1% in 2023-24.
• Net profit grew only 7.73%, slower than GVA (9.59%) [1].

• Good for workers in the short run. But if pay keeps rising faster than productivity (output per worker), firms may slow hiring or buy machines instead.

• Growth rests on a few heavy industries

• Basic metals, motor vehicles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food products give over 45% of manufacturing GVA [1].
• Several of these (basic metals, chemicals, motor vehicles) use a lot of machines per worker. This fits capital growing faster than jobs and output.
• A slowdown in steel or car demand would pull down the whole ASI number.

11. Why Tamil Nadu Has the Factories but Maharashtra Has the Money

• Compare each State's GVA share with its job share
• Maharashtra: 15.92% of GVA with 13.08% of jobs. Each worker there adds about 1.2 times the national average [1].
• Gujarat: 14.10% GVA, 12.99% jobs, about 1.1 times [1].
• Tamil Nadu: 10.90% GVA, 14.99% jobs, about 0.73 times [1].

• Uttar Pradesh: 6.64% GVA, 8.72% jobs, about 0.76 times [1]. (Ratios are my calculation.)

• What this means

• Tamil Nadu runs more labour-intensive industry (many workers, lower value per worker). It creates the most jobs but earns less per job.
• Maharashtra and Gujarat run more capital-intensive industry (more machines per worker). They earn more per job but create fewer jobs per rupee invested.

• Neither model is simply 'better'. A State that wants jobs and a State that wants high GVA will choose differently.

• UP is adding jobs but not yet adding value at the same speed

• UP's GVA-to-job ratio fell from about 0.82 in 2023-24 to about 0.76 in 2024-25 (from [1] shares).

• New factories there seem to be small or low-value. Jobs are spreading to a poorer State, which is welcome, but value added is not following yet.

• Industry stays locked in a few States

• Five States hold over 54% of GVA and 53.30% of factories [1].
• The six Census-scheme States (Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, A&N) are surveyed in full because they have so few factories [3]. That itself shows how thin industry is in the North-East.

12. Where the Survey's Picture Goes Blurry

• The data is 18 months old when it arrives
• The reference year ended on 31 March 2025. Results came on 30 September 2026 [1].
• Field work only starts in October, seven months after the year ends, and runs to June [1].

• So policy made today uses ASI numbers that are one and a half years old. The monthly IIP is faster but measures only volume, not jobs, wages or profits.

• The list of factories can be out of date

• The ASI samples from State CIF registers [3]. Units that have shut but are still on the list show up as 'deleted factories' [3].
• New units not yet registered are missed.

• The World Bank notes that enterprise registers miss formal firms when not updated, and by design miss all informal firms [6].

• Large parts of 'industry' are outside the survey

• Computer services and defence establishments are excluded [3].
• Unregistered small units go to ASUSE, not the ASI [3].

• So the ASI tells us about registered factories only. It cannot answer 'Is Indian manufacturing as a whole creating jobs?'

• A change in the factory definition would break the series

• ASI coverage is tied to the Factories Act definition (Sec 2m) [3].
• If the Labour Codes change the worker threshold for a 'factory', units near the line will enter or leave the frame.
• Then this year's figures and next year's will not be the same thing, and growth rates across the change will mislead.

13. What MoSPI and the States Could Do Next

• MoSPI should put per-worker and inflation-adjusted figures in the headline
• The factsheet leads with total growth (output, emoluments) in current rupees [1].

• Showing pay per worker, the contract-worker share, and real (price-adjusted) growth on page one would stop the '12% pay rise' misreading.

• The Standing Committee on Industrial Statistics (SCIS) should prepare a bridge before any definition change

• SCIS approved the 2012-13 sampling redesign [3], so it is the natural body to handle this.

• If the Labour Codes change factory thresholds, it can publish one year under both old and new definitions, so the trend is not broken.

• State Chief Inspectors of Factories should clean their registers every year

• The ASI frame is only as good as the CIF lists [3].

• Removing closed units and adding new ones would cut 'deleted factories' and make the 18% non-operating share easier to read [3][6].

• Aspirants and policymakers should read ASI together with PLFS and ASUSE

• ASI = registered factories (establishment side). PLFS = all workers (household side). ASUSE = unregistered units.
• Only the three together show whether jobs are truly new or just moving from informal to formal.

14. Anchors for Answers

• Data: Persons engaged in registered manufacturing rose 7.19% to about 2.10 crore in 2024-25, but pay per person rose only about 4.6% (emoluments +12.08% spread over more people) [1]
• Data: Invested capital +11.10% vs GVA +9.59% — each rupee of capital produced slightly less value in 2024-25 [1]
• Data: Maharashtra has 15.92% of GVA with 13.08% of jobs; Tamil Nadu has 10.90% of GVA with 14.99% of jobs — the capital-intensive vs labour-intensive split [1]
• Data: About 48,000 of 2,66,931 registered factories (18%) were not in operation [1]
• Report/Committee: Standing Committee on Industrial Statistics (SCIS) — approved the 2012-13 ASI sampling design [3]; Royal Commission on Labour — led to the Industrial Statistics Act, 1942 [3]
• Law/Case: Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 and Rules, 2011 (compulsory response); Factories Act, 1948, Sec 2m(i)/(ii) (sets ASI coverage) [3]
• Comparison: World Bank: enterprise registers miss formal firms when not updated and miss all informal firms by design — the same weakness as the CIF-based ASI frame [6]
• Scheme: Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes — cover pharmaceuticals and motor vehicles, two of the five industries giving over 45% of manufacturing GVA [1]

15. Mains Relevance

• GS-III: Indian Economy (growth, development and employment); Industrial policy and its effects on industrial growth; Inclusive growth.
• GS-II (secondary): Federalism and inter-State disparities; Government policies and interventions.
• Possible question stems: 1. The latest Annual Survey of Industries shows emoluments growing faster than employment in registered manufacturing. Examine what this implies for the quality of industrial jobs and labour productivity in India. 2. Manufacturing GVA and employment remain concentrated in a handful of States. Discuss the causes and suggest measures for more balanced regional industrialisation. 3. Assess the role of robust official statistics such as the ASI in evidence-based industrial policymaking. What are the limitations of a factory-register-based frame?

16. Related Topics to Study Next

• Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE): the counterpart survey for the unorganised sector.
• Index of Industrial Production (IIP): the monthly volume index; compare its frequency and coverage with the ASI.
• National Industrial Classification (NIC-2008): the basis of ASI stratification.
• Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS): household-side employment data, to contrast with the ASI's establishment-side data.
• Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes: relevant to the sectoral GVA leaders (pharma, motor vehicles).
• Labour Codes (Occupational Safety, Health & Working Conditions Code): may change the factory definition that sets ASI coverage.
• National Accounts / GDP base revision: the ASI is a key input.
• Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 / National Statistical System reforms.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Coverage threshold: the rule is 10 workers with power and 20 without power, not the reverse. [3]
• Launch year: the ASI was launched in 1960 with reference year 1959. The 1959 Rules were made under the 1953 Act. Don't confuse any of these with the 2008 Act, which is the current basis. [3]
• Different State rankings: most factories = Tamil Nadu; highest GVA = Maharashtra; most employment = Tamil Nadu; highest emoluments share = Maharashtra. The top-5 GVA list includes Karnataka, while the top-5 employment list includes Haryana instead. [1]
• ASI vs IIP: the ASI is an annual, census-cum-sample, value-based survey of the registered sector. It is not the monthly production index.
• "Organised" means registered under the Factories Act, not company registration. Unregistered units fall under ASUSE, not the ASI. [3]