In a bid to track how people commute across the country, the government will be conducting the first ever National Household Travel Survey as part of its 80th round of NSS Surveys, Moneycontrol has learnt.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation will commence the survey from July 2025, which shall track modes of transport taken by people.

The request was made by the Ministry of Railways, which will use the data to determine production of coaches, people aware of the matter said.

The survey is expected to track people across income classes using these modes of transport and in the case of railways, what category of service did they opt for.

“This is a first of a kind survey that is being conducted,” another person stated.

Besides NHTS, the ministry will also be conducting a survey on health, which shall commence from January 2025 and a Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey from July 2025.

Survey on health builds upon the 79th round of survey conducted by ministry, which covered only a few topics on health.

The current round is expected to be more extensive.

The tourism expenditure survey, on the other hand, was planned for 2020 but was abandoned due to Covid and has been started again.

The ministry, in its Vision 2024, had talked about increasing the surveys to enable data-based decision making.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported that the ministry is also working on a vision 2029 for the ministry, which would be ready within a few months.