RBI asks households in 19 cities what they expect inflation to do
The Reserve Bank of India has opened the November 2026 round of its Inflation Expectations Survey of Households, a poll the central bank says provides inputs for monetary policy, and it is asking households in 19 cities to say where they think prices are going.
The survey collects subjective assessments of price movements based on each household's own consumption basket. Respondents give qualitative views on general prices and on specific product groups for three months ahead and one year ahead, plus quantitative estimates of current, three-month-ahead and one-year-ahead inflation rates.
The cities covered are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi and Thiruvananthapuram. The RBI has engaged Hansa Research Group, based in Mumbai, to conduct this round on its behalf, and selected households will be approached by the agency.
Households not approached by the agency can still take part by filling in the survey schedule and emailing it to the RBI's Division of Household Surveys in the Department of Statistics and Information Management, which is handling queries at its Mumbai address.
Household inflation expectations matter because they can shape wage demands and spending decisions, and central banks watch them for signs of whether price pressures are becoming entrenched. The RBI has run the survey regularly, and the results of each round feed into its policy deliberations.
