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Reserve Bank of India (RBI) | Department of Statistics and Information Management (DSIM)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched the March 2026 rounds of three critical household surveys—Rural Consumer Confidence, Urban Consumer Confidence, and Inflation Expectations—to gather essential data for upcoming monetary policy decisions. These surveys track current perceptions and one-year-ahead expectations across a broad spectrum of the Indian population, covering 31 states and Union Territories, including the newly added UT of Ladakh.
Conducted on behalf of the RBI by external agencies such as Ipsos Research and Hansa Research Group, these rounds will capture household sentiments on the general economic situation, employment, personal income, and price movements. The consolidated results will provide the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) with real-time “High-Quality Data” on consumer behavior and forward-looking inflation expectations, ensuring that policy interventions are grounded in the ground-level economic reality of both urban and rural India.
Key Pillars of the March 2026 RBI Survey Rounds
Rural Consumer Confidence Survey (RCCS): Collecting current and forward-looking perceptions on income, spending, and price situations from households in rural and semi-urban areas.
Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS - Urban): Targeting households in 19 major urban cities to assess sentiment on the employment scenario and general economic health.
Inflation Expectations Survey (IESH): Capturing subjective assessments of price changes and inflation for the next three months and one year across 19 cities.
Geographical Inclusivity: Ensuring representativeness by covering all 31 states/UTs, providing a granular view of sentiment from Jammu & Kashmir to Tamil Nadu.
External Agency Integration: Leveraging specialized firms like Ipsos and Hansa Research for large-scale, face-to-face and digital data collection.
What are “Inflation Expectations”? Inflation expectations refer to the subjective beliefs that households and businesses hold regarding future price increases. These expectations are a critical “Technical Instrument” for the RBI because they influence current consumer behavior; for example, if households expect higher inflation in the next three months, they may increase current spending, which can itself drive up prices. By measuring these forward-looking sentiments across 19 cities, the RBI can gauge the “Implementation Fidelity” of its inflation-targeting mandate, determining whether its policy signals are successfully anchoring public expectations or if further rate adjustments are necessary to maintain price stability.
Policy Relevance
For India, these surveys represent the transition from “Lagging Statistical Indicators” to “Leading Sentiment Data,” providing the early-warning signals needed to manage the world’s fastest-growing economy.
Sovereign Monetary Resilience: Capturing inflation expectations from households ensures that the RBI can calibrate interest rates with “Implementation Fidelity,” protecting the purchasing power of low-income families.
Bypassing Urban-Rural Data Gaps: By simultaneously launching the RCCS and Urban CCS, the RBI bypasses the risk of “Siloed Policymaking,” ensuring that rural distress or urban consumption booms are equally weighted in policy decisions.
Operationalizing Consumer Sentiment: Sentiment data on personal income and spending acts as a proxy for future GDP growth, allowing the Ministry of Finance to align its fiscal stimulus with actual consumer demand.
Data-Driven Financial Stability: The expanded coverage to 31 states/UTs provides the “High-Quality Visibility” identified in the IMF 2026 report as necessary for maintaining investor confidence in India’s financial markets.
Linguistic & Regional Inclusion: Using platforms like BHASHINI to facilitate survey responses in regional languages ensures that the “furthest behind” groups identified in the ESCAP report have a voice in national economic data.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: How can the Ministry of Finance utilize the one-year ahead income expectations to calibrate the e-Shram social security payouts for informal workers?
Follow the full update here: RBI: Inflation Expectations Survey of Households - March 2026 | RBI: Urban Consumer Confidence Survey - March 2026 | RBI launches the March 2026 round of the Rural Consumer Confidence Survey