RBI survey shows worsening confidence in economy

Compared to 32.5% in March 2019, 54.9% of the households surveyed in January 2020 perceived India’s general economic situation has worsened in the last year.

Mumbai: More and more people are perceiving that the Indian economy is worsening. As per a survey report released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), more than half of the households said that the general economic situation in the country has worsened.

Compared to 32.5% in March 2019, 54.9% of the households surveyed in January 2020 perceived India’s general economic situation has worsened in the last one year.

While 27.1% of the respondents said the situation has improved, 18% of the households said the situation remained the same compared to that of January 2019.

The survey was done by the Central Bank on 5,389 households across 13 major cities, i.e Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram.

Employment

In the same survey, 48.4% of the respondents said the employment situation will improve in the next year. With regards to the current employment scenario, around 57% of the respondents said the situation has worsened compared to that of the same period a year ago.

Unemployment is one of the major pain points in the Indian economy. As per the official data, unemployment rate touched over four-decade high in 2017-18.

Inflation

Most households perceived prices and spending has increased during the past year and expect a further rise in expenditure over the next year. However, the current perception of inflation has increased to 84.9.

It should be noted that consumer inflation has touched over 7.3% in December 2019.