Consumption basket

Data shows a reassuring shift

A new working paper titled "Changes in India's Food Consumption and Policy Implications: A Comprehensive Analysis of Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2022-23 and 2011-12", published by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, has highlighted some interesting aspects of the trends in India's food consumption. A simple comparison of the data from the Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) of 2011-12 and 2022-23 reveals that there has been a significant increase in households' average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) in rural and urban areas across all states and Union Territories in the country. In fact, rural households registered a higher growth rate at 164 per cent relative to urban households, whose MPCE rose 146 per cent. Besides, the urban-rural gap in average MPCE has declined by 13 percentage points. In this context, the paper does well to document changes in food-consumption patterns, which constitute a large part of the household expenditure in a developing country like India.