Labour Bureau, Chandigarh organised the Training of Trainers for the five All India Surveys relating to Domestic Workers, Migrant Workers, Employment Generated by the Professionals, the Employment Generated in Transport Sector and the All India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey on 20th February, 2020. The training was presided over by Prof. SP Mukherjee, the Chairman of the Expert Group, Dr. Amitabh Kundu, the Co-Chairman of the Expert Group and Shri DPS Negi, Director General of Labour Bureau. Labour Bureau, Chandigarh, is an attached office of the Ministry of Labour & Employment.
The back-to-back training sessions were a part of the 3-day comprehensive training sessions to be imparted to the officers/officials of Labour Bureau, the officers from the 7 regional offices of Labour Bureau and officials from various state governments.
Detailed power point presentations explaining the objectives, sampling design and schedules for each of the five surveys viz. All India Surveys relating to Domestic Workers, Migrant Workers, Employment Generated by the Professionals, the Employment Generated in Transport Sector, and All-India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey were made by the officers of Labour Bureau. The schedules to be canvassed were deconstructed block-wise for each of the five All-India surveys in detail.
There was also a detailed Question & Answer Session in which field Investigators raised questions and sought clarifications regarding various questions in the schedules to be canvassed.
These trainings are a precursor to the trainings that will eventually be imparted to the field officers who will ultimately undertake the surveys across the country.
The Field Investigators were sent out into the field for a pre-testing survey to canvass the schedules for each of the five All-India surveys. The sample included both rural and urban pockets. Each team comprised of 7-8 Investigators and they were accompanied by officers of the IES and ISS to supervise the pre-testing exercise.
Thereafter, detailed presentations were made by each team in order to apprise Prof. SP Mukherjee the Chairman of the Expert Group, Dr. Amitabh Kundu, the Co-chair of the Expert Group, Shri. DPS Negi, the Director General of Labour Bureau and other senior officers about the learnings from the field visit. The learnings included observations, problems faced while canvassing the schedules, etc.
The results shared by the field investigators were positive and encouraging. They found that the respondents in most cases were cooperative and supportive. The field investigators flagged a few teething issues that they encountered while canvassing the schedules. The Chairman and other members of the Expert Group took note of all these issues. For example, in case of the pre-testing exercise of the All India Survey on Employment Generated by Professionals, the investigators suggested that prior appointments with professionals may be sought for smooth canvassing of the schedules.
The training session concluded with the remarks of Shri DPS Negi, Director General of Labour Bureau, who appreciated the efforts put in by the field investigators as well as the officers for making the pre-testing exercise a huge success. He stated that the data collected through these five bespoke All-India surveys will provide important inputs for evidence based policy making. Besides, data thus collected would help to fill the data gaps that existed until now as far as migrant and domestic workers are concerned.