For urban households in Maharashtra, food costs crossed 40% of monthly spends in 2017-18, for the first time in 18 years, while the food bill for their rural counterparts shot up to almost 49% of total spending, with that figure crossing 60% for the poorest 5% of households., data from the National Statistical Office’s 2017-18 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey or HCES show.
The average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE), an indicator of living standards and purchasing power, rose 69.5% for households in urban Maharashtra to ₹4,471 in 2017-18, from ₹2,638 in 2011-12. But it was propped up solely by coastal urban areas, led by Mumbai and its neighbouring districts with an MPCE of ₹5,613, while all other regions in the State languished below the average, as per the NSO’s HCES, which had been junked by the Centre citing data quality concerns.
The Maharashtra government has, however, published the State-level findings from the exercise conducted as part of the 75th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS).
“As the report based on Central sample data is not published by NSO, State sample results are not compared with Central sample results,” Maharashtra’s Director in charge of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics Vijay Aher stressed in his preface to the report reviewed by The Hindu.. “Therefore, report can be used for academic purpose with proper caution,” he wrote.
The spectre of such rural-urban inequality and gaps between regional income levels seemed to have widened in Maharashtra, one of India’s most prosperous States, as per the HCES data..
With the Centre junking the findings of the HCES, conducted from July 2017 to June 2018, the only official estimates on consumer spending currently available are from the 2011-12 Survey.
Rural households’ average MPCE in the State grew just 43% over the same six-year period to ₹2,045, again bumped up by coastal and western parts of the country. The MPCE for villagers in eastern Maharashtra (covers four districts including Gadchiroli) and its inland eastern region (that includes seven districts, including Nagpur) was the lowest at ₹1,469 and ₹1,754, respectively. This was barely higher than the ₹1,429 average MPCE of the State in 2011-12.
Rural folk also appear to have lost ground vis-à-vis their urban peers as their average monthly spends were just 45% of the ₹4,400-odd spent by average households in cities in 2017-18. This proportion stood at 54% in 2011-12.
For the poorest 10% of urban households, the proportion of their spends of total expenditure on food was far higher at 52%-55%, while households in the richest 5% bracket had more than 70% of spending power left even after their food bills were met.
As many as 30% of rural households in the State still relied on firewood for cooking in 2017-18, with the proportion rising to 40% for scheduled castes and 54% for scheduled tribes.
Traditionally conducted every five years, the HCES is used to arrive at estimates of poverty levels as well as to review key economic indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The results of the Survey are also utilised for updating the consumption basket and revise the base for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) used to measure inflation experienced on the ground by households.
The government had kicked off a fresh HCES last July, adding new questions to capture information about items received by households free of cost through government welfare schemes. The outcomes of the Survey which would have concluded last month, are likely to take at least a year to process.
