Telangana district tops India, women make up 78% of informal workers | Business News

High participation of women in the workforce is a very state-specific feature, with women making up at least half the informal workforce in only 25 districts – 22 of them are in south or north-east India, with the remaining three in the east: Chandel and Pakur in Jharkhand and Deogarh in Odisha.

The all-India average is 29%.

As per the data, the top-10 districts are either in Telangana, Manipur, Meghalaya, or Mizoram, “reflecting the significant role played by women in the unincorporated sector in these states”, MoSPI said in its report.

Overall, women make up at least 33% of the total informal workforce in 237 districts.

Pay divide

While districts from the south and north-east see major participation from women, they pay very little. For instance, the best-paying district in the top-25 with women making up at least 50% of the informal workforce is Meghalaya’s South West Khasi Hills, where the per hired worker emolument is Rs 1.7 lakh, only 35% or so higher than the all-India average of around Rs 1.3 lakh.

Meanwhile, workers in Dehradun get paid the most, with emoluments per hired worker at Rs 4.6 lakh. Only 19% of workers in the district of Dehradun are women.

The new report provides data for 757 districts. “However, the geographical coverage of some districts and number of districts may differ from the current administrative configuration due to subsequent changes in district boundaries, names and/or the creation of new districts,” it added.

Based on the data collected from the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) of 2025, this is the first time that MoSPI has released district-level estimates from a large-scale national survey. The enterprises covered are from the unincorporated non-agricultural sector, which broadly comprises establishments operating in manufacturing, trade, and other services in the informal sector.

Concentration of activity

Unsurprisingly, districts with greatest women participation are those with the highest percentage of female owned proprietary establishments. Nirmal tops this list again, with almost 80% of its proprietary establishments owned by women.

However, in terms of the number of workers or establishments, the distribution of the top-10 districts is more pan-India. West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas has the greatest number of informal workers with 21.3 lakh as well as establishments (16.6 lakh).

In a sign of how concentrated even informal economic activity is in India, the top-10 districts in terms of the number of establishments are responsible for around 11% of the total Gross Value Added. The top-50 districts account for almost a third of the GVA.

Source of data

According to Geeta Singh Rathore, Director General of MoSPI’s National Sample Survey, the unincorporated non-agricultural sector contributes “significantly” to employment, livelihoods, and economic activity.

“Given the diversity of economic activities and local conditions across the country, there is an increasing need for statistics that provide a more granular understanding of the sector for evidence-based policymaking,” Rathore said in the report.

The main ASUSE 2025 report was released earlier this year in May after a ‘fact sheet’ was made public in March. As per the survey, the total number of unincorporated establishments rose by 58.5 lakh in 2025 to 7.92 crore. This was a smaller increase than the 83.5 lakh in the 12 months ended September 2024. As a result, fewer jobs were also created: 74.5 lakh in 2025 compared to 1.1 crore in October 2023-September 2024.

The district-level data comes after MoSPI in June released a report on the informal sector in India’s 46 cities with a population of over 10 lakh as per Census 2011. Since those figures were based solely on urban areas, a district which shares the name with one of those cities – such as Howrah – may have different estimates as district-level figures in the latest report cover rural as well as urban areas.