'Salaried Indians spend more on health, edu'

Mumbai, Mar 25: An ASSOCHAM survey today revealed that salaried Indians were spending more on health and education and not on food, clothing and intoxicants like tobacco, which they used to until a few years back.

Displaying the changing trends in consumption, the survey says that the salaried class now spends much less on tobacco and other similar intoxicants. The average spending of households on intoxicants was about one per cent of the monthly budget in the year 200, which has now gone down to 0.8 per cent in 2006.

However, spending on transport and commutation has increased by cent per cent as against a rise of only 30 per cent in income-levels during the corresponding period, the chamber laments.

The spending levels are now 80 per cent more on health and 60 per cent higher on education.

In pre-2000 era, people spent more of their income in food, clothing and intoxicants, which has now changed for the better indicating a positive and matured transition in spending patterns, the ASSOCHAM survey highlighted.

UNI