The National Statistical Office will conduct India's first National Household Income Survey (NHIS) from April 2026 to March 27, the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) informed on Friday.
In a post on X, the Ministry said, "NSO, MoSPI is undertaking India's first National Household Income Survey (NHIS) from April 2026 to March 2027, capturing income to strengthen evidence-based policy formulation."
Information will be collected from nearly 4.5 lakh households across the country, selected through a scientifically designed sampling methodology to ensure reliable and representative results.
NSO, MoSPI is undertaking India's first National Household Income Survey (NHIS) from April 2026 to March 2027, capturing income to strengthen evidence-based policy formulation.
— Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (@GoIStats) April 17, 2026
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The survey will be the first country wide survey to measure total household income, marking a major step to address the data gap in socio-economic statistics, the Ministry said last year.
NHIS will aim to provide information on living conditions, income and expenditure patterns of people across India. The data from the survey 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, MoSPI earlier said.
Several countries such as Canada, United States of America and United Kingdom and less developed countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China and Malaysia collect household income data through household surveys. However, estimates of household incomes can also be derived from National Accounts Statistics. It must be noted that in comparison to NAS data, household survey data allows for inter-personal comparison of incomes and the analysis of sources and patterns of income generation.
Last year, MoSPI constituted a Technical Expert Group under the Chairmanship of Surjit Bhalla, Former Executive Director of India, International Monetary Fund. According to the recommendation made by the group, a pre-testing exercise of the draft schedule for the NHIS 2026 was conducted from August 4 to August 8 August 2025 to evaluate the clarity, comprehension, interpretability, and acceptability of the questionnaire.
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The exercise was carried out across 15 regional offices covering all six Zones, including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. In each selected regional office, two urban and two rural localities were chosen, covering both affluent and non-affluent segments.
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