Govt sets up expert panel for income distribution survey

New Delhi, Jun 23 (PTI) The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Monday announced the setting up of a technical expert group under chairmanship of Surjit S Bhalla to advise on an income distribution survey tentatively scheduled in 2026.

The technical expert group (TEG) will guide the National Statistics Office towards conducting an all-India income distribution survey, tentatively scheduled for 2026, a ministry statement said.

The MoSPI has constituted a TEG under chairmanship of Surjit S Bhalla, former Executive Director of India, International Monetary Fund.

The expert group will provide guidance with regard to finalisation of concepts and definitions, preparation of the survey method and instruments, sampling design and method of estimation, and incorporate best practices as adopted across the world.

The survey will also strive to assess the impact of technology adoption on household income (wages).

The TEG will also provide guidance for finalisation of the survey results and report for release.

In addition the chairman and several official from MoSPI and other ministries/ departments, other members of the TEG are Aloke Kar, Former Professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata; Sonalde Desai, National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi; Praveen Jha, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU; Srijit Mishra, School of Economics, University of Hyderabad; Tirthankar Patnaik, Chief Economist, National Stock Exchange of India; Rajesh Shukla, Managing Director & CEO, People Research on India's Consumer Economy; and Ram Singh, Director, Delhi School of Economics.

The TEG may seek assistance of subject matter experts within and/or outside the government and may co-opt them as members according to necessity with the approval from the competent authority.

The TEG may invite subject experts in the meeting as special invitee, if necessary, in order to meet specific requirements.

The National Sample Survey (NSS) is internationally recognised for the pioneering scale and scope of its household surveys, conducted annually and quarterly on a wide range of subjects since its inception.

The first survey was launched in 1950 and since then NSS has played a crucial role in providing data-driven insights for policymaking. However, despite its extensive experience, NSS has not yet undertaken a comprehensive full-fledged survey on income distribution.

Although pilot surveys have been attempted in the past, these efforts did not culminate in a nationwide survey.

The MoSPI in the past has made efforts for collecting information on household income along with the consumer expenditure surveys on experimental basis in the 9th round (May 1955 - September 1955) and 14th round (July 1958 - June 1959), though no report was released.

Later, it undertook collection of data on receipts and disbursements as part of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS) in its 19th round (July 1964 - June 1965) and 24th round (July 1969 - June 1970) with the aim of obtaining a complete picture of transactions of household income.

However, these efforts were not continued as it was found that the estimates of income were lower than the estimates of consumption and savings put together.

In 1983-84, the NSS again attempted a pilot enquiry on household income, however this too could not transform to an All India Survey. PTI KKS HVA