Households spending more on beverages, refreshments, processed food: Survey

The Housing Consumption Expenditure Survey Report 2023-24, released by the Statistics Ministry today, revealed that households are spending more on non-food items, spending liberally on beverages, refreshments, and processed food.

“Consistent with the trend observed in Household Consumption Expenditure Survey: 2023-24, non-food items remain the major contributor to the household’s average monthly expenditure in 2023-24 with about 53% and 60% share in Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) in rural and urban areas respectively,” said a release from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MOSPI).

“Beverages, refreshments and processed food continue to have the major expenditure share in 2023-24 in the food items basket of the rural and urban households,” it added.

The report said conveyance, clothing, bedding and footwear, miscellaneous goods and entertainment and durable goods have a major expenditure share in the non-food expenditure of households in both rural and urban areas.

According to the findings of the report, rent consisting of house rent, garage rent and hotel accommodation charges with about 7% share is another major constituent of the urban households’ non-food expenditure.

“Consumption inequality, both in rural and urban areas has declined from the level of 2022-23. The Gini coefficient has declined to 0.237 in 2023-24 from 0.266 in 2022-23 for rural areas and to 0.284 in 2023-24 from 0.314 in 2022-23 for urban areas,” the ministry's release on the findings of the report said.

The ministry conducted two consecutive surveys on household consumption expenditure during 2022-23 and 2023-24, once the situation normalized after the COVID-19 pandemic. The first survey was conducted during the period August 2022 to July 2023 and the summary result of the survey was released in February 2024.

According to the report, the average MPCE in rural and urban India in 2023-24 has been estimated to be ₹4,122 and ₹6,996, respectively without taking into account the values of items received free of cost by the households through various social welfare programmes.