Consumer confidence dips in March, says RBI survey

Mumbai: While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) remained quite upbeat about the recovery in domestic growth, the latest consumer confidence survey released by RBI showed that the consumer confidence waned again in March 2018 after showing some improvement in the December 2017 survey.
The survey was conducted in six metropolitan cities — Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi —and obtained 5,297 responses on households perceptions and expectations on the general economic situation, the employment scenario, the overall price situation and their own income and spending.
According to it, the current situation index has remained in the pessimistic zone since March 2017, while the future expectations index followed a similar trajectory.
It revealed that the household current perception on the general economic situation dived sharply from the neutral level polled in the last round with their one-year forward outlook too deteriorating. The respondents also expressed concern regarding the current employment situation and their one-year outlook on the job market turned less positive from the last survey.
However, household’s assessment of the current as well as the future price situation have broadly remained unchanged.
With respondents evenly divided in their assessment on current income compared to a year ago, the survey noted that the net response has been hovering around the neutral zone since the December 2016 round, with the outlook still positive but having deteriorated in the latest survey.
The monetary policy committee of RBI on Thursday expressed optimism regarding the domestic growth story citing strong revival in investment activity. According to it, industrial activity has rebounded and become broad based while services sector has showed resilience throughout the year.