National Sample Survey Organisation

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The National Sample Survey Organisation or NSSO, is an organization in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of the Government of India. It is the largest organisation in India, conducting regular socio-economic surveys.

NSSO is involved in three types of surveys.

Socio -economic surveys
Annual Survey of Industries
Agricultural surveys

In case of socio-economic surveys the entire responsibility of the survey from its design to release of the report is the responsibility of NSSO. In case of the other two activities the organisation is entrusted with collection of data from the field only.

The Socio-economic surveys involve Survey Design, Field Operations, Processing of data collected and releasing of the results based on surveys. The organisation is guided by a Steering Committee established by the Government. The selection of the subject of the survey, questionnaire design, instructions to field staff etc. are finalised by the Steering Committee. The subjects on which surveys are conducted vary over the years. Important subjects like, employment-unemployment and consumer expenditure, are regularly covered. The organisation is headed by a Director General and Chief Executive Officer.

NSSO consists of four divisions, each headed by an Additional Director General:

Field Operation Division
Data Processing Division
Survey Design & Research Division
Coordination & Publication Division

The head quarter of NSSO is located at New Delhi. It has a few regional headquarters also. The Field Operations Division has its headquarters at Delhi and Faridabad with a network of six zonal offices, 48 regional Offices and 117 sub-regional offices spread throughout the country. The Data Processing Division with its headquarters in Kolkata has Data Processing Centres at Delhi, Giridih, Nagpur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. This division is entrusted with the responsibilities of data entry, processing and tabulation of socio-economic data. The Survey Design and Research Division having responsibility of designing the questionnaire, sample design, etc and analyse the results has its headquarters at Kolkata. The Coordination and Publication Division is located at New Delhi.