India will launch its first nationwide Household Income Survey in February 2026, offering policymakers direct data on earnings from salaries, farms, businesses, investments, and informal jobs, addressing a long-standing gap in income, inequality, and taxation statistics.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), via the National Sample Survey (NSS), is driving the initiative. Past attempts in the 1950s, ’60s, and 1983–84 failed due to flawed methods and underreporting.
This time, an eight-member Technical Expert Group (TEG), chaired by economist Dr Surjit S. Bhalla, former IMF Executive Director and member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, is steering the process. The committee includes Aloke Kar, a former professor at ISI Kolkata; Prof. Sonalde Desai from NCAER; Prof. Praveen Jha of JNU; Prof. Srijit Mishra from the University of Hyderabad; Dr Tirthankar Patnaik, Chief Economist at NSE; Dr Rajesh Shukla, Managing Director and CEO of PRICE; and Prof. Ram Singh, Director of the Delhi School of Economics and an external member of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee.
Together, they are tasked with setting definitions, designing tools, refining sampling strategies, estimating income metrics, and incorporating best practices from countries like the US, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
The upcoming survey will use digital tools, focus on capturing income from both the wealthy and informal sector workers, and may integrate responses with tax records for validation. If done right, it will reveal how reforms, welfare programmes, and digitalisation have actually affected household incomes. It may also uncover underreported or hidden income streams, especially among high-income or informal households.
The findings could reshape how India designs tax policy and targets welfare schemes. Differentiating low-income from low-spending households will make social support more precise. The data could also fuel sharper debates on wage gaps, inequality, and class mobility especially ahead of elections.
However, challenges remain. Wealthy households often underreport income, while informal sector earnings are erratic and hard to capture. Balancing privacy with transparency adds another layer of difficulty. India’s vast informal economy and deeply skewed income structures only complicate the task.
The United States has long relied on the Current Population Survey for this purpose. South Africa, too, bases much of its progressive social spending on such data.
