Centre to track construction spend by households and contribution to GDP in a new survey

How much does spending by household on construction contribute to the economy? Do people spend more on construction material or labour? Is furniture still a big expenditure for households, or do they spend more on sanitaryware? These are the questions the Statistics Ministry is trying to address as it commences preparing for a first of its kind construction survey, Moneycontrol has learnt from people familiar with the development.

The new survey, expected to be conducted in the second half of the year, will try to capture gross value added or output from unincorporated enterprises or informal sector, along with households. This assessment will also be used in the new series of GDP, expected to be launched next year in February.

India efficiently captures construction activity of the organised sector, however, unorganised and household sector’s data is collated from All India Debt and Investment survey and old NSS reports released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

MoSPI had first conducted the pilot construction survey back in 1981.