New Delhi, Dec. 24 -- For decades, India has relied on its household consumption expenditure as the primary measure of welfare, poverty and inequality. While it is still important, it could be supplemented with new approaches that capture certain aspects of a rapidly transforming economy driven by technology and services in which households may have increasingly diversified sources of income.

Accurate, disaggregated and timely information on household income can help answer key policy questions, such as the reach of welfare transfers, burden of taxation, drivers of inequality and the vulnerability of different groups. Access to such data can enable governments to navigate policy decisions with clarity, grounding debates in evidence and d...