In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,--
(a) "agency" includes a person or persons engaged by the appropriate Government, directly or by outsourcing, for collection of statistics;
(b) "appropriate Government" means--
(i) any Ministry or Department in the Central Government; or
(ii) any Ministry or Department in a State Government or Union territory Administration; or
(iii) any local government that is to say, Panchayats or Municipalities, as the case may be, in relation to the collection of statistics under a direction issued by it under section 3;
(c) informant means any person, who supplies or is required to supply statistical information and includes a owner or occupier or person in-charge or his authorised representative in respect of persons or a firm registered under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 (9 of 1932) or a co-operative society registered under any Co-operative Societies Act or a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956) or a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (21 of 1860) or any association recognised or registered under any law for the time being in force;
(d) "information schedule" means any book, document, form, card, tape, disc or any storage media on which information required is entered or recorded or is required to be entered or recorded for statistical purposes under this Act;
[(da) "nodal officer" means the officer designated as a nodal officer under sub-section (1) ofsection 3A;].
(e) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
(f) "sampling" means a statistical procedure by which information relating to a particular field of inquiry is derived by applying statistical techniques to information obtained in respect of a proportion of the total number of persons or units concerned relevant to the field of inquiry;
(g) "statistical" survey means a census or a survey, whereby information is collected from all the informants in the field of inquiry or from a sample thereof, by an appropriate Government under this Act or any other relevant Act, wholly or primarily for the purposes of processing and summarising by appropriate statistical procedures;
(h) "statistics" means statistics derived by collecting, classifying and using statistics, specially in or for large quantities or numbers by appropriate Government from statistical surveys, administrative and registration records, and other forms and papers, the statistical analysis of which are, whether in a published or unpublished form;
(i) "statistics officer" means any officer appointed under section 4 for the purposes of any direction issued under section 3 of this Act.