Per Capita Consumption Expenditure is increasing faster in rural India than urban India

The National Sample Survey Organisation’s consumer expenditure surveys aim at generating estimates of household monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) and its distribution separately for the rural and urban sectors of the country, for States and Union Territories, and for different socio-economic groups. These indicators are amongst the most important measures of the level of living of the respective domains of the population. The provisional results on consumer expenditure of NSS 68^th Round (July 2011 – June 2012) are brought out by the NSSO recently.   The provisional results of NSS 68^th Round are based on the 7391 villages (59,070 sample households) in rural areas and 5223 urban blocks (41,602 sample households)  spread over almost all States and Union Territories in the country.  The results compiled  are based on a measure termed as “Monthly Per capita Consumer Expenditure with Uniform Reference Period” (MPCE_URP), where a common reference period of “last 30 days” was used for all items of Consumer Expenditure  on which data were collected.

The values of  average MPCE_URP for NSS 68^th , 66^th and 61^st rounds at all-India level at current  prices and at 2004-05 prices are given below:

Average MPCE_URP (Rs.)  at current Prices

NSS Round	Year	Rural	Urban
68th Round (Provisional)	July 2011-June 2012	1281.45	2401.68
66th Round	July 2009-June 2010	927.70	1785.81
61st Round	July 2004-June  2005	558.78	1052.36

               

  

  Average MPCE_URP (Rs.)  at 2004-05 Prices

NSS Round	Year	Rural	Urban
68th Round (Provisional)	July 2011-June 2012	707.24	1359.75
66th Round	July 2009-June 2010	599.06	1200.01
61st Round	July 2004-June  2005	558.78	1052.36

  Besides, the all-India  average MPCE,  average MPCE over decile classes of MPCE from the data collected in the 68^th Round are given below. These decile classes for rural and urban domains are computed separately.

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All India average MPCE_URP (Rs.), NSS 68^th Round, Consumer Expenditure over decile classes of population.

Decile Class	RURAL		URBAN
	Decile Class Limits ( in Rs.)	MPCEURP ( in Rs.)	Decile Class Limits ( in Rs.)	MPCEURP ( in Rs.)
1st	upto 597	503.49	Upto 860	702.26
2nd	597-719	661.19	860-1086	977.25
3rd	719-824	770.88	1086-1295	1189.57
4th	824-922	873.73	1295-1509	1398.76
5th	922-1030	974.03	1509- 1759	1630.67
6th	1030-1162	1094.92	1759-2070	1908.46
7th	1162-1334	1243.95	2070-2464	2248.50
8th	1334-1581	1448.61	2464-3077	2737.71
9th	1581- 2054	1783.87	3077-4281	3571.31
10th	2054 -more	3459.77	4282 -more	7651.68

   

Some salient findings of the survey are as follows:

Ø  The per capita expenditure level of the urban population was on the average over 87% higher than that of the rural population.

Ø  The poorest 10% of India’s rural population were spending on consumption items an monthly average of Rs.503.49 per person i.e. less than Rs 17 per day. The poorest 10% of the urban population were spending on consumption items an monthly average of Rs.702.26 per person  i.e. more than Rs 23 per day.  The difference is just eight rupees per one individual.

Ø  The top 10% of the rural population as per MPCE_URP, had an average monthly spending of Rs. 3459.77 on consumption items per person (about Rs 115 per day), about 6.9 times that of the bottom 10%. The top 10% of the urban population had an average monthly spending of Rs. 7651.68 on consumption items per person (about Rs 255 per day),  about 10.9 times that of the bottom 10%.

Ø  In rural India, half of the population belonged to households with MPCE_URP below Rs.1030 (median value).

Ø  In urban areas of India, half of the population was living with MPCE_URP below Rs.1759.

Real increase in per capita monthly consumption expenditure in rural and urban areas from (2009-10) to (2011-12) had been 18% and 13% respectively, whereas at current prices the quantum of increases was 38% in rural areas and   34% in urban areas.  It implicitly indicate that prices of consumption goods are rising more in urban than rural areas.  Also the spending power with rural areas are now rising faster than urban.