Archives: Event

Launch of Book on Evolution of the NSS

Launch of Book on Evolution of the NSS by Dr G.C. Manna, Senior Adviser, NCAER and Former Director-General, CSO and NSSO

NCAER and the Institute for Human Development (IHD) jointly organised a book launch event on June 30, 2025, at the India International Centre, New Delhi, to release a book “75 Years of the Indian National Sample Survey: Evolution of Sample Design, Key Challenges and Way Forward“, authored by Dr G.C. Manna, Senior Adviser at NCAER and visiting Professor at IHD. Dr Manna is the former Director-General of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).

The book, published by Springer Nature, provides an overview of the Indian National Sample Survey (NSS), which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. It summarises the key features of the survey methodology, highlights the strengths and limitations of the data collected through the NSS, and outlines the way forward to address critical data gaps for strengthening the NSS database. The book also highlights some global / best survey practices. The book is truly meant to be used as a reference material by the survey practitioners across the globe. In addition, it will be of interest to a variety of other readers, including students, researchers, planners, and policymakers.

More details available here: About the Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book was launched with welcome remarks by Dr Anil K. Sharma, Secretary and Operations Director, NCAER; Professor Alakh Sharma, Director, IHD; and, Mr. William Achauer, Editorial Director, Business Economics Programme for Asia-Pacific Region, Springer Nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The launch of the book was followed by a Panel Discussion on “Strengthening National Sample Survey: Experiences and Future Perspectives”, chaired by Professor S. Mahendra Dev, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). The panellists included Dr Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India; Professor T.C.A. Anant, Visiting Professor, IHD, and former Chief Statistician of India; Dr Sudipto Mundle, Non-resident Senior Fellow at NCAER and Chairman, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram; and, Dr Radhicka Kapoor, Senior Employment Specialist for South Asia, International Labour Organization.

Understanding Nuances of Financial Markets and Ensuring Investor Protection in the Digitalized World

The Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), in collaboration with the Office of Chief Skill Development Centre, ONGC, organized a workshop on “Understanding Nuances of Financial Markets and Ensuring Investor Protection in the Digitalized World” at the ONGC Auditorium in Agartala on June 16, 2025. The workshop is part of a continuing initiative to promote financial awareness and investor protection in India’s increasingly digital financial landscape.

Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Janjua, ED-Asset Manager, Agartala, delivered the welcome address, highlighting the relevance of financial education programs in resource-rich but financially underserved regions like Tripura. The keynote message by Ms. Anita Shah Akella, CEO, IEPFA and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs underscored IEPFA’s mission to protect investor interests and build a robust awareness ecosystem.

The workshop featured a dynamic panel discussion, moderated by Dr. C. S. Mohapatra, IEPF Chair Professor at NCAER. He steered the conversation by explaining the complexities of financial markets and products and the need for remaining watchful and knowledgeable on the patterns of scams and frauds that are on the rise along with digitalization. While Government and regulators have built investor protection frameworks, investors themselves need to understand the nuances of digital transformation in financial market and remain vigilant in their journey towards maximizing financial well-being.

Key panel interventions included:

  • Mr. Apurba Roy, Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Tripura, was represented by Mr. Akinchan Sarkar, Additional Secretary, who provided valuable insights into state-level governance and investor protection efforts giving examples of integration of treasury and beneficiary management systems. He also stressed on the importance of insurance and pension sector in comprehensive financial inclusion.
  • Prof. Shubhrabaran Das, HoD, Dept. of Economics, Tripura University, explained the types of investment and patterns. His deliberation covered the nuances of financial markets and associated risks giving examples from commodity derivatives and equity market as also how to protect investors
  • Mr. Nitin Singh, Financial Services Specialist & State Project Lead, RAMP Tripura, highlighted on-ground experiences and empowered the audience with tailored financial knowledge, secure access to digital financial tools, and institutional safeguards essential for building an inclusive and resilient investor protection ecosystem in a fast-evolving nuance of digital market.

The panel addressed emerging challenges and opportunities in investor protection, the role of financial literacy in the digital age, and actionable recommendations to build a resilient financial ecosystem.

The session concluded with a highly interactive Q&A session that followed a warm vote of thanks by Mr. MSBA Khan, GGM, Drilling, Head Drilling Services, ONGC as he hoped for continuing with similar collaboration in future.

India Policy Forum 2025

The 22nd edition of the India Policy Forum Conference was held at NCAER premises in New Delhi during the period from 26 to 27 of June, 2025. It was hosted in collaboration with NITI Aayog and The World Bank.

NCAER has been holding the IPF Conference every year since 2004. During the last two decades, the IPF has evolved as a marquee annual event for NCAER and a vital podium for carrying forward its rich legacy and historical traditions of promoting empirical evidence-based research. The Conference is also the leading economic policy event in the summer season of Delhi and is attended by a galaxy of eminent policymakers, scholars, practitioners, academics, and members of the research fraternity, including some of the best economists in the world working on India.

The IPF aims to promote empirical economic research on India through commissioned papers that are presented and discussed at the conference. Each paper is subsequently edited and finally published in a conference volume.

The 2025 Conference featured presentation of five papers, along with two policy lectures and three panel discussions on key topics. The research papers covered a diverse range of sectors and subjects, including the employment landscape and pathways to jobs in India; the key drivers of corporate investment in India;; economic growth and development in the state of Karnataka; gender gaps in entrepreneurship in India; and, the role of innovation in driving growth in the Indian economy.

The first paper presented at IPF 2025 was on The Landscape of Employment in India: Pathways to Jobs, authored by Visiting Professor at NCAER, Farzana Afridi and her co-authors. The paper focuses on the manufacturing and services sectors, particularly the more labour-intensive sub-sectors therein, as key drivers of job creation in India. It highlights constraints on both the demand and supply sides of the labour market that hinder progress towards attaining the employment goals for Viksit Bharat. The authors also project the number of jobs that can be created through output growth in labour intensive manufacturing and services sub-sectors between 2025 and 2030, using different growth scenarios. The results suggest that inter-sectoral linkages can have a multiplicative effect on employment in the aggregate economy. The paper concludes with policy prescriptions to boost aggregate demand and enhance workforce skilling.

In the second paper, titled, Corporate Investments in India: Lack of Investment Opportunity or Lack of Funds?, the authors Amiyatosh Purnanandam and Arushi Sharma  investigate the key drivers of corporate investment in India. Specifically, the paper shows the relative importance of investment opportunities and financial constraints the firms face. The authors find that capital expenditure responds positively to the investment opportunities, and the sensitivity of investment has increased after the reforms in the banking sector in the mid-2010s. They assess the importance of cash flow constraints and how it varies across industries. Using the recapitalization of the Indian banking sector and the collapse of Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) as shocks to access to finance, the paper uncovers the extent of constraints they face and factors that alleviate these constraints. These findings have policy implications aimed at spurring investments and economic growth in India.

Another paper by M. Govinda Rao, Economic Growth and  Development of Karnataka, highlights the remarkable transformation of Karnataka from a less than average per capita income State in 1990-91, to the second highest among the large States in 2022-23. However, the impressive growth performance of the state has not translated itself into appreciable human development, mainly due to the significant regional variations in development. As a result, Karnataka is a state of contrasts – with dynamism and spectacular development in some regions co-existing with penury and backwardness in others. This imbalance is also seen in the spectacular growth of the services sector while the shares of both agriculture and industry have shown a steady decline. Bengaluru, the IT and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) capital of the state, has been the leading centre for the growth of the services sector due to, inter alia, an impressive knowledge economy; innovation and high-tech capital; skilled manpower; elite public institutions; salubrious climate; multicultural and cosmopolitan population; and, responsive bureaucracy. In contrast, the Kannada-speaking districts which were under the Hyderabad Nizam and the Bombay Presidency continue to experience backwardness despite various initiatives to develop them. The government’s response to development has been mainly reactive to the developmental concerns. Ensuring sustained and balanced growth in the state would require significant policy reorientation.

In the fourth paper presented at the IPF, Gender Gaps in Entrepreneurship in India:  Entry Barriers and Growth Constraints, the authors Gaurav Chiplunkar and Pinelopi Goldberg examine gender gaps in entrepreneurship in India. Using nationally representative data, they show that female labour force participation explains much of the gender gap in self-employment, but not in entrepreneurship, where women remain under-represented and report facing disproportionate barriers in access to finance, infrastructure, and in navigating regulatory environments. The paper thus flags large, persistent barriers to firm growth for women, even in richer states, highlighting the need for multi-dimensional, state-specific policy solutions.

The fifth  paper, Some Facts about Indian Innovation, by Namrata Kala, Josh Lerner, and Junxi Liu, suggests that innovation is a key driver of growth and development, and understanding its evolution in developing countries can provide important insights into the development process. The paper describes several key stylised facts of Indian innovation in the twenty-first century, finding considerable variation in patenting by geography; Indian versus foreign inventors; ownership of inventing organisation (public versus private); and, type of organisation (academic institutions versus firms). In the context of the rapid growth of patenting and venture capital in India and the intense interest in innovation in developing countries, the authors anticipate that the paper would stimulate research in this area by economists and other innovation scholars.

Apart from these five papers, the India Policy Forum Conference of 2025 also featured two lectures, chaired by NCAER Chairman Nandan Nilekani, including the IPF Lecture on “India’s Role in the New World Disorder”, delivered by Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times, and another one on “Unleashing India’s Growth: Talent, Delegation, and the Scaling of Firms”, delivered by Ufuk Akcigit, Professor, University of Chicago.

There were also three panel discussions on key national and international issues, such as “Trump’s Trade Wars and the Future of the International Trade System”; “Global Economic Outlook”; and, “Geopolitical Turmoil and its Potential Impact on the Indian Economy”, with leading economists, academics, and policy-makers as the participants. The Conference concluded with a panel discussion on “India’s Multiple Transitions – Financing a Big Investment Push”, moderated by the Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog, Mr Suman Bery. The panel included Arvind Virmani, Member, NITI Aayog; Nagesh Kumar, Director and Chief Executive, ISID; and, Pravakar Sahoo, Programme Director, NITI Aayog.

For any queries, please contact ipf@ncaer.org

Roundtable Discussion on Advancing Female Employment in Urban India

NCAER, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO), hosted a roundtable discussion on Advancing Female Employment in Urban India on 8 May 2025. The event brought together policymakers, researchers, and development practitioners to deliberate on the persistent barriers to women’s labour force participation in urban India and to explore strategies for ensuring inclusive employment growth.

Dr Ratna Sahay, Head of NCAER’s Centre on Gender and Macroeconomy, and Ms Michiko Miyamoto, ILO Country Director for India inaugurated the roundtable. Dr Sahay underscored the transformative potential of formalising part-time employment for boosting female employment and economic growth in India. She also accentuated the importance of integrating gender considerations into macroeconomic policymaking and the often-overlooked value of care work, both within households and across the broader economy.

Ms Miyamoto emphasised the chronic neglect of the care economy in global economic discourse. She pointed out that strategic engagement from the government could unlock substantial opportunities within India’s care economy, benefiting both employment and social outcomes.

Presentations

The first presentation at the event from Dr Aakash Dev of NCAER focused on the entrenched barriers to female labour force participation, particularly in urban settings. He identified unpaid care responsibilities, limited access to flexible work in the formal sector, restrictive gender norms, and inadequate training as major impediments to women’s labour force participation. Recent research at the Centre on Gender and Macroeconomy reveals that formalisation of part-time employment and equitable sharing of domestic care responsibilities can lead to a 6-percentage point increase in female labour force participation in India.

In the next presentation, Ms Aya Matsuura of the ILO made a compelling case for strategic investment in the care economy, not only for narrowing gender employment gaps but also for generating a huge number of decent jobs, especially in the formal education and healthcare sectors.

Key Discussion Themes

The roundtable discussions, moderated by Dr Sahay, centred on identifying actionable interventions to enhance women’s employment in urban India. The participants highlighted the need to bridge the gap between skills training and actual entry into the labour market to ensure that training translates into tangible job opportunities. It was suggested that guaranteeing safety, accessibility and fair remuneration in employment and promoting financial literacy for women would help address both the logistical and economic barriers faced by them.

The importance of strengthening transport infrastructure to ensure safe and convenient commutes and workplace safety for women to enable sustained female workforce participation was also highlighted.

The participants also noted the potential of technology to reduce physical labour, and sector-specific strategies—particularly in manufacturing industries such as automotive—to challenge gender stereotypes and bring more women onto shop floors.

The roundtable concluded with a recognition of the complex barriers limiting women’s labour force participation in urban India, and the need for coordinated multi-sectoral policy action to create a more gender-inclusive and equitable urban labour market.

National Workshop on Dissemination of Methodology to Assess Skill Shortages and Gaps

The NCAER and Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship jointly organised the National Workshop on ‘Dissemination of Methodology to Assess Skill Shortages and Gaps’ on 18 March 2025, at the NCAER Auditorium in New Delhi. The workshop was attended by 85 in-person participants, and 53 participants who joined virtually from State Governments around the country.

The keynote address at the workshop was delivered by Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE.

Welcome Address by Dr Anil Sharma, Secretary, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)

Dr. Sharma welcomed everyone to the workshop. He discussed about the challenges we are facing today for upskilling and reskilling the labour, and keeping this in mind NCAER started working on skills about 10 years ago.

First study done in this space was ‘Skilling India –No Time to Lose’. There was another study on skilling in schools that was done for Central Board of Secondary Education, under which NCAER evaluated the programmes and initiatives by the schools. It was appreciated by World Bank as well. There were several other studies interlinked with skilling. At present 3 different types of studies are ongoing at NCAER, which are in collaboration with the MSDE. One for which the workshop is being held i.e. methodology for assessing skill shortages and gaps in the 7 high growth sectors led by Dr. Bornali Bhandari. The other two are led by Dr. Poonam Munjal, regarding ‘Concurrent Evaluation of the PM Vishwakarma Scheme’ and ‘Concurrent Monitoring of the PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana Scheme (PMKVY)’.

Inaugural Remarks by Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE)

Shri Tiwari thanked Dr Poonam Gupta, Dr Anil Sharma and Prof Bhandari and her team. He introduced to the audience that the national workshop was the culmination of a series of workshops to present the methodology for assessing skill shortage and gap. From a public policy perspective, the importance of the study stems from the fact that India needs targeted skilling interventions, for which we need a proper understanding of what the skill demand is.

Shri Tiwari provided examples of how such studies have been done internationally, by highlighting instances of demand driven analyses from other countries, such as:  quantitative forecasting models in the United States, employer led skill demand studies from Germany, qualitative approaches of Australia, foresight and scenario planning of Brazil, and big data and real time analytics of Europe.

He mentioned that MSDE’s objective was to arrive at a methodology which can used for anticipating and adapting skills at the national level, and essentially to have a labour market information system that assesses skills and shortages at present, and also anticipates future skill demands. The ministry approached NCAER to take forward this work due to the institute’s established eminence in this field of work.

Shri Tiwari hoped for this methodological prototype to serve as a dynamic framework for continuous skill demand assessment, which evolves with economic shifts and technological advancements, and for it to be replicated at sub-national and sectoral levels to ensure state level and industry specific skill planning.

He expressed confidence that the national workshop, along with the regional workshops held prior to this, would help us in arriving at a methodology which will allow us to ensure that India’s skill ecosystem remains, agile, targeted, future ready, and align with the demands of an evolving global economy. Shri Tiwari concluded his remarks by thanking Prof Bornali Bhandari and her team for taking forward exceptional work in this regard.

Inaugural Remarks by Shri V.S. Arvind, Director, SANKALP

The Director, Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) MSDE, Shri V.S. Arvind gave the inaugural remarks. 

 

 

 

 

Presentation on methodology to assess skill shortages and gaps at the Central, State and Sectoral levels

Prof. Bornali Bhandari, Professor, National Council of Applied Economic discussed the detailed methodological framework for the skill gap assessment in 7 key sectors.

 

 

 

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