NSO to kickstart next edition of 'Debt and Investment Survey' in 2026

The National Statistical Office (NSO) is slated to kickstart the next round of “All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS)” in 2026, after the surveys on health, travel and tourism expenditure are completed as part of the 80th National Sample Survey (NSS) round next year, official sources said.

 

“We will soon have discussions regarding the survey in 2025 and a decision on the schedules is expected to be made. Thereafter, the survey may be started in 2026. However, it is all at a very primary stage, and the process will take some time before the final results are made available,” one of the sources said.

 

AIDIS is important because it collects data on the average value of assets, the incidence of indebtedness, the average amount of debt, and debt-asset ratio across urban and rural households. It will be an important source to gauge the impact of the Covid pandemic on the debt burden of Indian households, or whether the proposition that India’s consumption is being fuelled by borrowings is true.

 

The last edition of AIDIS was conducted between January and December 2019 as a part of 77th round of NSS, with an aim to collect basic quantitative information on the assets and liabilities of the households as on June 30, 2018. More than 120,000 households were contacted under the survey.

 

Besides, the survey also gathered information on the amount of capital expenditure incurred by the households.

 

Results made available in September 2021 found that the average value of assets per household stood at Rs 1.59 million in rural India (Rs 2.21 million for cultivator households, Rs 785,000 for non-cultivator households) and Rs 2.72 million in urban areas (Rs 4.15 million for self-employed households and Rs 2.21 million for other households).

 

The survey has also found that incidence of indebtedness was about 35 per cent in rural India (40.3 per cent cultivator households, 28.2 per cent non-cultivator households) compared to 22.4 per cent in urban India (27.5 per cent self-employed households, 20.6 per cent other households).

 

In rural India, 17.8 per cent households were indebted to institutional credit agencies against 14.5 per cent households in urban India. On the other hand, 10.2 per cent of the households were indebted to non-institutional credit agencies in rural India and 4.9 per cent households in urban India.

 

The plan to kickstart a survey to assess debt situation also comes at a time when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s latest Financial Stability Report released in June showed that India’s household debt rose to 40.1 per cent of the GDP in 2022-23. This survey will likely shed light on which households contributed to the rising debt situation.

 

“Financial liabilities of households have risen in the post-pandemic period, as reflected in the surge in retail loan growth for financing both consumption and investment. Alongside, agricultural and business loans have also grown,” the report said. 

GAUGING THE IMPACT

 

*  The survey will be useful to gauge the impact of covid-19 pandemic on the debt burden of Indian households

 

*  The last edition of the survey was conducted between January – December period in 2019

 

*  RBI’s latest Financial Stability Report released in June showed that Indian household debt rose to 40.1 per cent of the GDP in 2022-23