Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The National Statistics Office (NSO), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), is conducting large-scale household surveys on diverse social and economic subjects, undertaken regularly since its inception in 1950.
Over the years, the National Sample Survey (NSS) has emerged as a vital source of official statistics for evidence-based policymaking, capturing household welfare, consumption, employment, health, assets, indebtedness and related aspects of socio-economic development.
Among the forthcoming surveys, a major new initiative is the National Household Income Survey (NHIS), scheduled to be launched in February, 2026. This will be the first-ever pan-India survey focused on measuring household income, representing a significant step toward filling a long-standing data gap in India’s socio-economic statistics system.
NHIS will provide information on people’s living conditions and income / expenditure patterns. Data from NHIS is used for rebasing consumer price index, in the preparation of national accounts and to analyse poverty and hardship in communities in countries across the world.
In many countries, including developed countries like Canada, United States of America and United Kingdom and less developed countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China and Malaysia, household income data is collected through household surveys.
Estimates of household incomes (or income accruing to the household sector) can also be derived from National Accounts Statistics (NAS). The merit of household survey data on incomes compared to NAS based estimates is that household survey data allows for inter-personal comparison of incomes and the analysis of sources and patterns of income generation. The survey will cover the whole country and strive to generate estimates of total household income.
With a view to providing necessary guidelines in conduct of the survey in India, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has constituted a Technical Expert Group (TEG) under the Chairmanship of Dr Surjit S. Bhalla, Former Executive Director of India, International Monetary Fund.
As per the recommendation made by the TEG, a pre-testing exercise of the draft schedule for NHIS 2026 was conducted during 4-8 August 2025 to evaluate the clarity, comprehension, interpretability, and acceptability of the questionnaire.
The exercise was carried out across 15 Regional Offices (ROs) of the Field Operations Division (FOD) of NSO, MoSPI covering all six zones — including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. In each selected RO, two urban and two rural localities were chosen, covering both affluent and non-affluent segments.
Pre-testing of data collection instruments is a standard practice in large-scale socio-economic surveys to identify issues related to clarity, flow, structure, and respondent burden before final field deployment. The exercise helps NSO to refine the NHIS questionnaire and ensure that the final instrument is robust, reliable, and user-friendly.
Subsequent to the completion of the pre-testing, a report has been prepared covering the experience gathered during the pre-testing exercise of the survey and the same was uploaded on the Ministry’s website (www.mospi.gov.in) for reference.
The Draft Questionnaire / Schedule of the National Household Income Survey (NHIS), 2026 has been prepared incorporating the recommendations of the pre-testing exercise and uploaded on the Ministry’s website (www.mospi.gov.in) for wider consultation and feedback.