In the conduct of surveys and in gathering market intelligence the role of regional offices of the department becomes critical. The regional offices can also help in providing early warning indications on price pressures, build-up of supply shocks, sudden developments in the real estate sector and so on.
Noted economist Alfred Marshall once said: “Statistics are the straw out of which, I, like every other economist, have to make the bricks”. In the Reserve Bank, the statisticians not only provide straw, they also make their own bricks.