Challenges in India’s income survey

In an ideal world, the respondent to the Household Income Survey (HIS), to be undertaken by the National Statistics Office next year, would be like Vijay from the movie Deewar. Recall the immortalised dialogue, where Amitabh Bachchan (Vijay) tells Shashi Kapoor (Ravi): “Aaj mere paas bangla hai, gaadi hai, bank balance hai.” Granted, this is a conversation between two brothers and not between a surveyor and a respondent. If households are as forthcoming in their responses, conducting the HIS will be a breeze.

- S CHANDRASEKHAR & ABHIROOP MUKHOPADHYAY

Inthe past 75 years, the statistical system has undertaken surveys of consumption expenditure for two reasons. First, households are more comfortable disclosing consumption expenditure rather than income. Second, India had a foodsecurity and hunger problem and it made sense to focus on consumption. Thisisnottosuggest India does not collect information on the income of households. The annual Periodic Labour Force Survey has information on the labour-market earnings of all working members of the households. The Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households collects information fromagricultural households on their various sources ofincome. Information on household incomeisavailable from other sources including the India Human Development Survey, Consumer Pyramid Household Survey, Nabard (National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development) Financial Inclusion Survey, etc.

‘As part of the planning forthe HIS, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has decided to exercise caution by conducting a pilot survey in order to understand the challenges in conducting the survey. The feedback from the field con-