IT Correspondent
Mumbai, Oct. 31:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI ) has launched the latest round of surveys to capture consumer confidence and inflation expectations of households, which are useful inputs for its monetary policy.
The RBI has been regularly conducting Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS) and Inflation Expectations Survey of Households (IESH). The results of these surveys “provide useful inputs for monetary policy”, the RBI said while announcing the launch of the November 2020 round of CCS and IESH through two statements. The next meeting of the RBI Governor-headed Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is scheduled for 02 December to 04 December, 2020.
The CCS which seeks qualitative responses from households regarding their sentiments on general economic situation, employment scenario, price level, households’ income and spending, is conducted regularly in 13 cities — Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram covering over about 5,400 respondents across these cities.
The Mumbai-based agency, M/s Hansa Research Group Pvt. has been engaged to conduct the survey of this round on behalf of the RBI through face-to-face as well as telephonically, in view of the phase-wise resumption of activities. For this purpose, the selected households will be approached by the agency and they will be requested to provide their responses. Other individuals, who are not approached by the agency, can also participate in this survey by providing their responses using the linked survey schedule. The filled in survey schedule can be e-mailed to RBI.
The RBI will also be conducting IESH in November 2020. The survey aims at capturing subjective assessments on price movements and inflation, of approximately 6,000 households, based on their individual consumption baskets, across 18 cities, viz., Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi and Thiruvananthapuram. The survey seeks qualitative responses from households on price changes (general prices as well as prices of specific product groups) in the three months ahead as well as in the one year ahead period and quantitative responses on current, three months ahead and one year ahead inflation rates. The results of this survey is expected to provide useful inputs for monetary policy.
The same agency, M/s Hansa Research Group Pvt. Ltd. will be conducting these surveys related to inflation expectations on behalf of the RBI through face-to-face as well as telephonic interactions.