1       TThe National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) carries out socio-economic surveys, undertakes field work for the Annual Survey of Industries and follow-up surveys of Economic Census, sample checks on area enumeration and crop estimation surveys and prepares the urban frames useful in drawing of urban samples, besides collection of price data from rural and urban sectors.  This organisation functions under the overall direction of a Governing Council with requisite independence and autonomy in the matter of collection, processing and publication of NSS data.  In addition to the non-official Chairman, the Governing Council is composed of five academicians, five data users from Central and State Government departments and senior officers of the Ministry.  The NSSO is headed by the Director General and Chief Executive Officer (DG&CEO) who is responsible for co-ordinating and supervising all activities of the organisation and is assisted by a small secretariat called Co-ordination and Publication Division (CPD).  The DG and CEO is also Member-Secretary of the Governing Council.  He is assisted by  one Additional Director General and  4 Deputy Director Generals.  The major activities of the NSSO pertains to Survey Design, Field Operations, Processing of data collected and releasing of the results based on surveys.  The Survey Design and Research Division and Data Processing Division have its headquarters at Kolkata.  The Field Operations Division has its headquarters at Delhi and Faridabad with a network of six Zonal offices, 48 Regional Offices and 117 Sub-Regional offices spread throughout the country.  The Data Processing Division with its headquarters at Kolkata has Data Processing Centres at Delhi, Giridih, Nagpur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.  The division is entrusted with the responsibilities of data entry, processing and tabulation of socio-economic data.