Dr Rajesh Shukla, director, NCAER-CMCR, is the man in charge of India?s biggest-ever consumer survey, the National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure (NSHIE 2011): Living in India. He shares with FE the survey?s objectives, methodology, and how Living in

India will be a data goldmine for policy makers and marketers alike. Excerpts:

What are the objectives of NSHIE 2011?

With household demand being one of the key pillars of the Indian economy, companies and policymakers require continuous data on trends in household spending and income. The NSHIE has for long been providing the nation reliable estimates of household income, whereas this has been a major gap area in the rich tradition of statistical data collection in India.

The key pillars of the NSHIE have been the robust estimation of the household troika?income, spending and savings. NSHIE 2011 goes further, capturing the ?state of the nation? dashboard with data on education, occupational transition, health, well-being, etc. This time the survey also includes a section on the mind of the Indian consumer, probing values, perceptions, aspirations, consumer confidence and buying behaviour.

How was the survey research planned? Is it robust?

NSHIE 2011 was planned as a series of pan-India surveys, with ongoing panel surveys for five years. It was started with the preliminary round canvassing five lakh households. The round that started on June 01 will be the main survey round capturing comprehensive household data from a random sample of one lakh households drawn from the households canvassed in the prelim round. This will be followed by a series of panel surveys for deeper issue-based investigation, tracking and trend mapping over the next five years. Twenty thousand households covered in the main survey will be selected for the panel round.

What are the changes in NSHIE this time?

The goal was to convert NSHIE 2011 into a panel survey using the current survey as the base for the next five years. Additionally, the present one is being conducted in 32 states and union territories. The sampling frame, which is used for stratification purposes as well as base data this time, comprises over 5,00,000 households. While the general structure of the questionnaire in the main round has been retained from 2004-05 round to ensure comparability, greater detail has been included in many sections. The product categories itself have been vastly expanded, providing far greater insight into the buying behaviour of the Indian consumer. New themes such as health, remote payment, mindscape, etc have been added. Separate sections on household well being, orientation and buyer behaviour, too, have been added.

How will this benefit policy makers and corporates?

Given the paucity of data and excessive reliance of policy makers and academicians on the NSS data, the NSHIE survey provides an alternative data set like no other. For example, poverty estimation in India can be informed with an alternative definition, and can be linked to various occupational, geographical, agro-climatic zones, educational and other characteristics, and policy can be formulated in a more specific manner enhancing its outcome effectiveness, and even in helping programmes reaching the right beneficiaries.

For corporates, the data provides them a unique opportunity to understand the Indian consumer in a much more detailed, more granular level and with much more comprehensive data in each micro segment. It is important to mention that the current study has been carried out only after consulting all stakeholders, who include members from both the corporate sector as well as policy makers.