Key Takeaways
- India’s first nationwide household income survey launches February 2026
- Aims to directly measure income distribution and inequality
- Public consultation open until October 30, 2025
The Indian government will conduct its first-ever nationwide household income survey in February 2026, addressing a critical data gap in measuring income inequality. The National Household Income Survey (NHIS) will be implemented by the National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
What the Survey Will Capture
The comprehensive survey will collect detailed information on household earnings, expenditure patterns, and income sources across both rural and urban India. Unlike existing consumption and employment surveys, the NHIS will generate direct, comparable estimates of actual income levels.
The MoSPI explained: “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.”
Public Consultation Underway
In preparation for the rollout, MoSPI completed pre-testing of the draft questionnaire across 15 regional offices in August 2025. The exercise covered both affluent and non-affluent areas in major cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
The testing was supervised by a technical expert group chaired by Surjit S. Bhalla, former executive director for India at the International Monetary Fund.
The ministry has now published the pre-test findings and draft NHIS schedule for public consultation. Researchers, policymakers, and citizens are invited to submit feedback on areas including wages, self-employment income, property income, and remittances by October 30, 2025.
Filling a Critical Data Gap
The NHIS represents a significant shift in how India tracks household welfare and inequality. For decades, official assessments of living standards have relied solely on consumption expenditure data due to the absence of direct income estimates.
This limitation has affected the accuracy of poverty and inequality analysis. The new survey will capture household earnings from multiple sources including wages, self-employment, property income, and remittances, providing a clearer picture of income distribution across regions and social groups.
