Economics & Statistics

The fundamental gospel of District Statistical Office, Williamnagar established in the year 1978 is to push back the domain of ignorance, rule of thumb, arbitrary or premature decisions, tradition and dogmatism and to increase the domain in which decisions are made and formulated on the basis of analytical facts.

The Departmental has no other developmental schemes during the Annual Plan period for implementation rather than presenting the statement in a precise and a definite form which helps the Government in formulating policies in social, economic and business in the field of planning, taxation, social security etc. on the basis of analysis of statistical data and inferences drawn from them and to give judicious forecasting of the future trends which is a sine qua non for efficient implementation of policies.

The District Statistical Office is mainly engage with Crop estimation survey on various crops namely Autumn paddy, spring paddy, winter paddy, Rape & Mustard which falls under the National Crop Insurance Scheme whereas along with these crops ginger, potato, cotton, maize and jute are included for crop estimation survey. The office conducts the crop cutting experiment on various crops from the Experimental fields and plots to get the average yield rate of the crops. It also deals with the National Sample Survey and collection of Retail and wholesale prices throughout the District. The office is also dealt with the publication of Statistical Abstract, District at a Glance and Block Indicator from the Block Level.

The main function of the District Statistical Office, Williamnagar is to conduct Surveys such as

• Crop estimation survey, Crop Forecasting,
• National Sample Survey (NSS).
• Publication relating to the District.
• Collection of Weekly and Monthly Retail Price as well as Wholesale Price of commodities.
• Compilation & Updating of Land Utilisation & Irrigation Statistics Report on Yearly basis.
• Collection of Price of Building Materials and other survey assigned thereof under East Garo Hills District.

CROP ESTIMATION SURVEY:
In view of the predominant role of agriculture in the State economy of Meghalaya timely, reliable and comprehensive agricultural statistics are of paramount importance. The primary responsibility, rest with the block development offices of the different district for collection of agricultural statistics including the area and production of the crop in the state. The yield rates of principal crops are estimated through the crop estimation survey (CES). Besides providing estimates of yield rates, the survey is also to collect useful ancillary information on the existing cultivation practice, attack of pest and diseases, natural calamity, etc. on the principal crops of the state, thus obtained are compiled and analyzed by the Head office of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics and are sent every year to the Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operation, Directorate of Economics and Statistics and to the National Sample Survey Organization (FOD) Faridabad for over all account of the Status of estimation of Agriculture production, etc. in the country and also the technical details and results relating to the improvement of crop statistics. The crop estimation survey is conducted through crop cutting experiment (CCE) in all the selected sample villages as per sampling design. The main objective is to obtain the following estimates.

 Average yield per hectare of the crop at the Block/District and State level.
Production of the crop at the Block, District and State level.
Productivity of certain variety of the particular crop at the District and State Level.
To study the productivity of the crop grown under different cultural practices.

CROP FORECAST:
Crop forecasting of various Khariff and Rabi crops of the district is done taking into account
all the land use statistics and area, production and yield of all the C&RD Blocks of the district. The Crop Forecast Committee has been constituted with Deputy Commissioner as the Chairman, District Statistical Officer as Secretary, District Agriculture Officer, District Horticulture Officer, District Forest Officer, Divisional Soil &Water Conservation Officer and Agricultural Executive Engineer (Irrigation) as its members.

PRICE:
The wholesale and retail Price of essential items of food and non-food items are collected on weekly and monthly basis from the District headquarter and from the 3 (three) different Community and Rural Development Blocks. It is an attempt to depict the price situation during the year and the monthly variation of general price level in both urban and rural areas of the district.

PUBLICATIION:
The District Statistical Office, Williamnagar has published “ THE DISTRICT STATISTICAL ABSTRACT, East Garo hills,2009 “ which is Fifth in its series under the guidance of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Meghalaya, Shillong which provide Statistical information and Socio economics aspects of the District for the benefit of the interested individuals, policy makers, planners, research scholars etc.

NATIONAL SAMPLE SURVEY (NSS):
The National Sample Survey (NSS), set up by the Government of India in 1950 to collect socio-economics data employing scientific sampling methods, starts its 79^TH (Seventy-Nine) round from 1^st July, 2022. The survey continued upto 30 June, 2023.

Economics and Statistics Department, Government of Meghalaya