The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. The government has, however, termed it a "draft" report, reports Somesh Jha.
Could the MPCE survey results be used as a basis of reconstructing the Consumer Price Index with new weights, asks Madan Sabnavis.
Retail inflation stood at 2.75 per cent in January under the new series of All India Consumer Price Index (CPI), with 2024 as the base year, released on Thursday.
Of the donations, 48% is in kind -- such as food, clothing, or other household goods -- followed by cash (44%) and volunteering (30%) with non-profits, religious institutions, or community groups.
India's economy experienced a growth of 7.8 per cent during the October-December quarter of 2025-26, according to the new series of national accounts with 2022-23 as the base year.
The Indian economy recorded a six-quarter high growth of 8.2 per cent in July-September, as factories churned out more products in anticipation of a consumption boost from the GST rate cut, according to government data.
Food budgets in urban areas spent less on protein as compared to beverages and processed foods, reveals the Household Consumption Expenditure survey data for 2023-24.
The number of people averse to the surveys by the National Statistical Office (NSO) has more than doubled over the last five years between the 75th National Sample Survey (NSS) round (July 2017- June 2018) and the 79th NSS round (July 2022-June 2023), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation MoSPI) said on Friday in a conference organised to discuss the issue of 'non- responsiveness' to its sample surveys. The ministry said that nearly 6.9 per cent people in urban areas surveyed by the NSO for the 79th NSS round did not participate in the exercise, while the number of people in rural India that refused to participate in these surveys stood at 3.9 per cent.
As the poverty rates in the country declined below 5 percent in 2024, a research study by State Bank of India also highlighted that the extreme poverty in the country has been reduced to minimal.
A recent World Bank report placing India among the most equal countries globally may present a limited view of inequality, with economists suggesting that broader data sets could tell a different story. According to the report, India's Gini index (or coefficient/ratio), a key measure of inequality, stood at 25.5 in 2022-23, placing the country fourth globally in terms of equality, behind only the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus.
During the UPA government's second term in office, rural India's consumption expenditure grew at a faster pace than urban India's - for the first time since 1991.
'Without a poverty line, how are we to know whether poverty is the same, or it has come down or it has gone up?'
The 2023-2024 figures showed that the size of the industry, excluding those having an annual turnover of Rs 20 crore, could be Rs 30,652 crore, assuming no tax evasion.
'If because of El Nino, the monsoon is affected adversely in the current year, naturally it will affect income projections and consequently Budget numbers.'
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Literate and rich sections of the society do not cooperate enough with surveyors collecting economic data.
In contrast, according to the two sets of poverty estimates provided by the NSS using consumption expenditure data, the country's poverty level is 27.5 per cent according to the 30-day data and 21.8 per cent on the basis of the 365-day data.
From the Sensex pack, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank, Adani Ports, Maruti Suzuki India, Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Asian Paints were among the laggards. Reliance Industries fell the most by 2.38 per cent to close at Rs 1,171.10 apiece.
The minister said the international experience suggests that the inequalities tend to increase in the early phase of development.
Rural Bihar appears to be doing much better than urban areas in the state, if one goes by a recent National Sample Survey Organisation report.
Planning Commission had got into a big controversy on this issue.
The revision of the consumer price index and GDP base years from 2011-12 and 2012, respectively, were dependent on the outcomes of the consumer expenditure survey of 2017-18 that the government decided to junk recently.
The 31st meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, held in December 2018, deferred a decision to reduce the GST rate for cement from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. This was despite recognising that cement - along with automobile parts - remained among the few mass-consumption items still taxed at the highest slab, which was originally meant for luxury and sin goods.
This will be the first full-year Budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government since it came to power for a third consecutive term in July last year.
India's economy is projected to slow to 6.5 per cent in the fiscal year starting April but will remain the fastest growing major economy in the world as it fared better in dealing with the extraordinary set of challenges the globe has faced, the Economic Survey 2022-23 said on Tuesday. India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6.5 per cent in 2023-24 compares with an estimated 7 per cent expansion in current fiscal year (April 2022 to March 2023) and 8.7 per cent in the previous year. Like the rest of the world, India too faced an extraordinary set of challenges in tightening financial conditions and supply chain disruptions from a prolonged war in Europe but "withstood them better than most economies", the annual document detailing the state of the economy said.
The Planning Commission's latest poverty estimates, based on the 2011-12 consumption expenditure survey, shows that across India, the number of people living below the poverty line declined by more than 15 percentage points -- from 2004-05 to 2011-12 and from 37 per cent to 21.9 per cent.
Recent documents by NITI Aayog and periodic labour force surveys on employment show that the importance of agriculture is rising in the Indian economy.
'Revision of the base year for both CPI and GDP are long overdue.' 'The basic data that went into the 2011-2012 series were mainly from surveys done in 2011 or earlier.' 'We have since seen the emergence of new sectors like platform-based work and online marketing.' 'The employment surveys and the consumption surveys need to reflect these adequately.'
Extreme poverty in India declined by 12.3 percentage points between 2011 and 2019, with rural areas doing better than urban centres, according to a working paper of the World Bank. India has not released a new household consumption survey since the NSS from 2011. By extension, the country has not released any official estimates of poverty and inequality for over a decade now, added the paper co-authored by economists Sutirtha Sinha Roy and Roy van der Weide.
Expenditure on food articles as a proportion of monthly expenditure is decreasing.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
Extreme poverty in India declined by 38 million in 2021 to 167.49 million after a surge in the two preceding years, but remained above the 2018 level, the latest World Bank data shows. While for most countries poverty rose in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the global economy, the data shows poverty shot up in India a year earlier in 2019 to 176.09 million from 151.79 million in 2018, the lowest pre-pandemic count. India's poverty rate at 11.9 per cent in 2021 also remained higher than the 2018 level of 11.09 per cent, though easing from 14.72 per cent in 2020.
The Indian economy may be registering strong growth, but nearly 20 per cent of the population or close to 250 million people of spent less than Rs 14 per person per day on consumption in 2004-05.
However, Icra Rating Principal Economist Aditi Nayar feels that the numbers are a bit too optimistic and need real heavy-lifting by the Centre and the states. "The survey forecasts on real and nominal GDP will require a substantial push from Central and state spending as private sector capacity expansion is anticipated to be intermittent, and sector-specific in the next couple of quarters," she said. Nayar added that private consumption is likely to chart a differentiated recovery across income and age groups. Based on the comments made in the Survey, she expects the Union Budget to incorporate a growth in gross tax revenue of 15-16 per cent.
"The report says that per capita consumption expenditure of 18.7 per cent of the rural population and 4.7 per cent of the urban population in the country is less than Rupees 12 per day. It implies that 16.3 crore people in the country spend less than Rs 12 per month representing 14.7 of the total population," Minister for Rural Development Reghuvansh Prasad informed the Lok Sabha on Monday.
This time there has been a rather peculiar criticism of the latest GDP numbers.
Releasing the survey report after taking into account the expert committee recommendations, Statistics Secretary Pravin Srivastava told reporter, "It is a new design and a new matrix. It would be unfair to compare it with the past. This 45- year high is your interpretation. I don't want to claim that it is 45-year low or high."
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