The debate on the predominantly informal nature of the Indian economy has had limitations with data, but it has never been boring. Three years ago, a study claimed that seven million jobs were created in 2017-18.

       It later turned out, as this newspaper reported first, that most of them were not new jobs, but transitions from informal jobs to formal employment. This November, a study by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist at the State Bank of India, India’s biggest bank, has claimed that the informal sector of India’s economy has shrunk from 52 per cent in 2018 to 20 per cent ...