Government to conduct survey of all agricultural households in India

The government has decided to conduct a survey of all agricultural households in the country to assess the plight of farmers for the current crop year (July-June).

The information was shared by Minister of State for Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a written reply to Lok Sabha on February 5, 2019. The survey would cover the period from July 2018 to June 2019.

Key Highlights

• The survey called the 'Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households' will be conducted during the 77th round of the National Sample Survey in the current calendar year.

• It would mainly focus on assessing the income, expenditure and indebtedness of the agricultural households among other issues for the current crop year.

• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) has been chosen as the nodal agency.

• The last such survey was conducted for crop year 2012-13. Post it, the National Sample Survey Office has not conducted any such survey.

• The comparable estimates for rise in income of agricultural households during 2014-2018 are also not available.

Other Details

The periodicity of such a survey is decided on the basis of requirements of the concerned ministry, adequacy of the current data, availability of resources and manpower, emerging areas of concern and development priorities of the government.

Given the vastness of the country's size and resources involved, the NSSO conducts other surveys on household consumer expenditure and employment-unemployment after every five years.

The inter-ministerial committee formed on doubling farmers' income by 2022 has considered the estimates of agriculture households' income obtained from the 70th round of NSS survey data as the base level income.