Factories with more than 200 workers generated 72.4% of India’s factory gross value added (GVA) in 2022-23, concentrating output in larger plants, a National Statistics Office (NSO) paper found.
That group produced ₹15.90 trillion of an estimated ₹21.97 trillion in total factory GVA. It represented 10.4% of factories but 63.1% of factory employment, according to the paper.
The analysis appeared in the 121st issue of Sarvekshana, released Oct. 14, 2026, by the National Statistical Systems Training Academy (NSSTA), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). MoSPI reports the estimates at current prices and defines GVA as gross value of output minus intermediate consumption, including materials and purchased services.
Across the factories studied, 2.7% reported a research and development unit and 6.7% provided formal worker training. Among factories with more than 200 workers, the figures were 12.4% and 20.1%, respectively. At factories with up to 10 workers, they were 0.6% and 2.5%. The paper reports these differences but does not establish that research or training caused the GVA gap.
Women made up 10.9% of workers in the factories studied. Their share was 8.5% at factories with up to 10 workers and 11.5% at those with more than 200 workers.
The ASI 2022-23 uses each factory’s accounting year ending between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023. It includes factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948; certain bidi and cigar establishments; units with at least 100 employees in state-maintained Business Registers of Establishments when states share those lists; and certain electricity generation, transmission and distribution undertakings not registered with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). Its results describe the covered factory sector, not every manufacturing business in India.
A separate ASI summary table for selected manufacturing puts the factory share at 13.05% when employment bands starting at 200 workers are combined; its first band includes factories with exactly 200 workers. The Sarvekshana paper’s 10.4% figure covers factories with more than 200 workers. Because the sources use different scopes and thresholds, the two shares should not be treated as directly comparable.
