With an aim to contain the rising inflation in the country, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the 35th round of the quarterly survey of inflation expectations for the next three months, which are based on subjective assessments of about 5,000 households across 16 cities. The RBI notification has stated that the survey seeks qualitative responses from households on price changes (general prices as well as prices of specific product groups) for the next three months and for next one year. The results of this survey are being used by central bank as one of the important inputs to the monetary policy formulation.
RBI has appointed Mumbai-based market research agency Hansa Research Group for conducting the current round of the surveys. RBI further noted that though the agency will approach select households seeking responses, other individuals not approached by the agency can also participate in the survey by downloading the survey schedule from the RBI web site.
The RBI had highlighted that prevailing high inflation in the country continued to pose challenges to economic growth over the medium-term by impacting people's savings. Therefore, in order to check inflation, the central bank, in its third quarter review of monetary policy 2013-14, increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 8%. WPI inflation eased to eight month low at 5.05% in January as compared to 6.16% in December and 7.31% during the corresponding month of the previous.