RBI Launches Inflation Expectations Survey; to Gather Responses Over Telephone Amid Pandemic

The Reserve Bank of India has launched the inflation expectations survey of households and responses of the participants will be gathered over telephone in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

The RBI has been regularly conducting the survey to elicit subjective views of the households on price movement across various cities of the country. The results of the survey are used as inputs for the monetary policy.

The July 2020 round of the Inflation Expectations Survey of Households has been launched, the central bank said in a release on Tuesday.

Hansa Research Group, Mumbai has been engaged to conduct the survey of this round on behalf of the RBI over telephone instead of the regular personal interview mode in view of the pandemic.

"For this purpose, the selected households will be approached by the agency and they are requested to provide their response over telephone," the release said.

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.

The cities that would be covered are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi and Thiruvananthapuram.

The survey would seek qualitative as well as quantitative responses from households on price changes -general prices as well as prices of specific product groups -- for the three months ahead as well as in the one year ahead period, as per the release.

In the wake of the pandemic, the government released truncated retail inflation data for April and May.

The RBI would also conduct July 2020 round of Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS) to seek qualitative responses from households, regarding their sentiments on general economic situation, employment scenario, price level, households' income and spending.

The survey, which would also be done over telephone, would cover approximately 5,400 respondents across 13 cities.

Findings from both the surveys, which are conducted on a regular basis, are used by the RBI while deciding the monetary policy.