Wave 25 of CPHS ran from January 1st 2022 to April 30th 2022. The data captured during this Wave will be released on May 1st 2022 and will be available through the CPdx service for all subscribers. As of the 24th Wave, there were 635 indicators in the CPdx dataset. Six new indicators have been added in the data released for the 25th wave. Thus, CPdx will henceforth have 641 indicators. The data for these new indicators will be available for the 25th wave and for all subsequent Waves.

Since the beginning of the survey in 2014, indicators have not been deleted. However, there have been several additions. These additions have been made to expand the scope of the survey in accordance with our internal requirements and field observations as well as suggestions and requirements of our subscribers and the research community.

New Indicators in People of India

Two indicators have been added in the ‘People of India’ module. These indicators have been added to capture information on household members who have completed a diploma or certificate course. The dataset already contains the ‘EDUCATION’ indicator which captures the highest level of formal education achieved by a member of a household. Diploma/certificate courses have become increasingly popular and are often obtained along with another educational qualification and may not be reflected in the ‘EDUCATION’ indicator. Thus, we have introduced a separate field to capture whether a household member has completed a diploma/certificate course and another field to capture which discipline the diploma/certificate was obtained in. These new indicators enable us to capture education of household members with greater detail and accuracy.

1. HAS_DIPLOMA

   This indicator captures information on whether a household member has completed a diploma or certificate course. This includes part-time and full-time courses, taken online or offline.

2. DISCIPLINE_OF_DIPLOMA

   This indicator provides information on which discipline the diploma/certificate course was obtained in, such as science, commerce, arts, engineering, medicine, etc. If the individual has completed more than one diploma/certificate course, the discipline of the most recent one will be recorded.

New Indicators in Aspirational India

Two indicators have been added in the ‘Aspirational India’ module. These indicators provide details on survey execution, namely, the language used when conducting the interview for each household, and the date of interview for each household.

1. LANGUAGE_OF_INTERVIEW

   This indicator provides information on the language used by the surveyor while conducting the interview for a particular household. CPHS is a conversational interview and surveyors use local languages and regional dialects when conducting the survey, to elicit accurate responses from the households. Users of the CPHS dataset will now know of language/dialect of the conversation during the interview. Perhaps, they could then make a guess of the language or dialect usually spoken in the household.

2. DATE_OF_INTERVIEW

   This indicator provides the date on which the surveyor completed the survey interview for the particular household, during a Wave.

   The data has been demanded by many users in the past. We are pleased to add this indicator.

   Users may note that a household is slotted for an interview in a month every Wave. This is indicated by the ‘MONTH_SLOT’ indicator which has always been provided. The actual interview usually takes place during the ‘MONTH_SLOT’ month but, there can be exceptions. The ‘DATE_OF_INTERVIEW’ will reveal these exceptions. This information can be useful in more ways, of course.

   Note further that while the interview takes place on a particular date, its acceptance by the supervisor could happen on another day. In most cases, the acceptance is on the same day. But again, there are exceptions. We feel the most important information is the date of the interview because much of the data pertains to that date.

New Indicators in Income Pyramids

Two indicators on household income have been added to the ‘Income Pyramids’ module. These capture the income earned by households from in-kind transfers from the government and in-kind transfers from NGOs, during a month. All kinds of in-kind transfers such as durable goods, food, housing, etc. are captured in these indicators. This is in addition to the ‘INCOME_OF_HOUSEHOLD_FROM_GOVERNMENT_TRANSFERS’ indicator that was already included in our dataset, which captures total household income from cash transfers. These new indicators expand the scope of studying social welfare in India.

1. INCOME_OF_HOUSEHOLD_FROM_IN_KIND_TRANSFERS_FROM_GOVERNMENT

   This is the total income earned by the household from in-kind transfers received from the government during a month. We compute the total income of such transfers based on the market price of the goods given by the government.

2. INCOME_OF_HOUSEHOLD_FROM_IN_KIND_TRANSFERS_FROM_NGO

   This is the total income earned by the household from in-kind transfers received from a non-governmental organisation during a month. We compute the total income of such transfers based on the market price of the goods given by the non-governmental organisation

A complete list and definitions for all 641 CPHS indicators are available here.