13th Quarterly and 3rd Annual estimates released

14th Quarterly survey commenced

The 13th quarterly survey with estimates for the quarter ended March 2012 and for the year ended March 2012 are released today, 12th July 2012. The survey to collect the data that goes into these estimates was executed during April, May and June 2012. The survey was completed on 30th June and the estimates have been released within less than a fortnight of the completion of the survey.

Execution of the survey was interuppted in Silchar in Assam for a brief period, but this did not stop the successful completion of the survey in the city and in the state.

There were problems with respect to the quality of data collected from Bihar. As a result, the panel of households had to be re-created in the region. Again, after the corrections, the survey was completed in the state in time. Execution corrections were made in Tamil Nadu to ensure that the data collected was reliable.

The survey was conducted without much ado in the rest of the country. And, the estimations were completed in time without any problem.

None of the interruptions and interventions affect the quality of the data delivered in Consumer Pyramids.

The thirteenth quarterly survey leads to estimations for the quarter ended March 2012 and also the year ended March 2012. Consumer Pyramids therefore now provides estimates for 12 quarters (from June 2010 through March 2012) and for the three years (2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12).

The response rate fell a tad to 92.2 per cent during the March 2012 survey. It was 92.8 per cent in the December 2011 quarter and 93.3 per cent in the September quarter. It had dropped in the September 2011 quarter because the survey had to be abandoned in the quarter in Assam because of law and order problems. The response rate fell in the March 2012 quarter because the addition of new households in Bihar increased the denominator.

The 14th Quarterly survey commenced early in July 2012. This seeks information pertaining to the months of April, May and June 2012. We expect this survey to face operational difficulties because of the monsoon. This is also the period of the maximum religious and other social activities. The Ramazan period begins in July and ends in August; August has a number of Hindu festivals and Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations are in the second half of September. However, we have plans to overcome these difficulties and complete the survey in time to ensure that the results are released by Monday, the 15th of October.