Guwahati, March 9: Among the Indian states, there are stark variations in average time spent by a person in paid economic activities, with Assam, other Northeast states and Goa reporting significantly lesser time spent on such works.

An average person in Delhi spends 8.3 hours on work per day while an average person in Goa spends 5.5 hours and an average person in Assam spends 5.87 hours respectively, according to a report by Economic Advisory Council to the PM.

The average amount of time spent on paid economic activities or 'working' per day in India is 422 minutes. For an average working week of six days, this translates into 42.2 hours per week. Most interesting aspect of this analysis is the significant variations across states.

While Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli exceed 600 minutes of work per day (more than 10 hours per day), Goa and most North-eastern states report less than 360 minutes per day (less than six hours per day), the analysis by Dr Shamika Ravi released recently revealed.

People in rural Assam spend 348 minutes or 5.8 hours (fourth lowest after Goa, Andaman and Nagaland) a day, while those in urban Assam spend 6.35 hours (also fourth lowest after Goa, Manipur and Meghalaya).

In Goa, there are major variations in working hours across sectors. But, regardless of the nature of work and sectors, the Northeastern states of India report significantly shorter workday compared to rest of the country.

Within each sector of the economy, the Northeastern states - Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura - report the lowest working time per day.

However, rural females in Assam spend 5.35 hours, which is higher than 20 other states.

Interestingly, government employees in the urban areas of Telangana and Rajasthan work two more hours every day than their counterparts in Assam, Meghalaya and Kerala.

The Indian average of 422 minutes per day or 42 hours per week (assuming six days per week) is significantly lower than the 700 minutes per day or 70 hours per week benchmark expectation being set. However, comparing across countries, Indians report working hours which are comparable to other fast developing countries like Vietnam, China, Malaysia, and Philippines.

The most developed Organization for Economic Coopera-tion and Development (OECD) countries report much lower working hours (33 hours per week on average for OECD group).

The paper analyses the Time Use Survey Data (2019) conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) of the Government of India.