The Centre is planning to conduct the Sixth Economic Census as a Central Sector Plan Scheme in collaboration with all states and Union territories.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation, Mr Srikant Kumar Jena while addressing a function in New Delhi today to mark the Statistics Day today.

The Minister said it will provide the official count of entrepreneurial units located in geographical boundaries of the country involved in economic activities.

He said the database would certainly enable policy makers to assess the impact of the economic liberalization process on entrepreneurial activities, especially in the unorganized sector.

Mr Jena said that India is committed to make contribution towards improving the international statistical systems. He said Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) have been signed with the Government of Afghanistan, EuroStat and with SAARC countries.

Another important initiative is statistical cooperation among BRICS national statistical organizations, which has resulted in a joint statistical publication.

Mr Jena said the industrial sector is one of the important sectors of the Indian ecoomy both in terms of its spread over the ecoomy and its contribution to the generation of income, employment and foreign exchange earnings.

The Minister also gave away the National Awards for Statistics for 2011-12 to Prof. Jayant Vinayak Deshpande and Prof Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, on the occasion of Statistics Day.