Substantial no. of Indians spend less than Rs 20 a day: Survey

New Delhi, Jan 31 (UNI) A substantial number of Indians spent less than Rs 20 a day per head in 2005-06 on daily consumption needs, official statistics reveal.

Nearly 19 per cent of rural households spent less than Rs 12 a day per head in 2005-06 while 22 per cent of the urban population belonged to households having expenditure of about Rs 19 per head, data released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) show.

Of every rupee spent by the average rural Indian on consumption in 2005-06, 53 paise went towards food against 40 paise by his urban counterpart.

These facts on household consumer expenditure in India have been brought out by an NSSO survey by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Chhattisgarh at Rs 429, Orissa at Rs 460, Bihar (465), Jharkhand (469) and Madhya Pradesh (487) were among the states recording the lowest monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE).

In 2005-06, nearly 19 per cent of the Indian rural populace belonged to households with MPCE of less than Rs 365 against Rs 580 by 22 per cent of the urban population.

The value of average food consumption per person in urban areas was in the range of Rs 451-Rs 500 a month in 7 of 17 major states. Surprisingly, 13 major states belonged to the range Rs 251-400.

In terms of quantity of cereals consumed per person in 2005-06, rural people scored at 11.9 kg in rural areas against 9.8 kg in urban areas.

Rural India fared poorly on other fronts too. About 19 per cent of rural households lived in 'kuccha' structures (both roof and walls made of katcha materials) and only 50 per cent lived in pucca structures. In urban India, the percentage of households using LPG as the major fuel for cooking was as high as 40-75 per cent in all the major states contrasted by 74 per cent of rural households depending on firewood and chips as their major cooking fuel.

But development was slowly making an impact in rural India where about 56 per cent of households used electricity for lighting while 42 per cent used kerosene.

In expenditure, Kerala led among the states with its urban population spending Rs 1,566 a month on average followed by Punjab at Rs 1,520.

Data collected for the survey included commodity-specific information on 148 items of food, 13 items of fuel, 28 items of clothing, bedding and footwear, 18 items of educational and medical expenses, 52 items of durable goods, and about 85 other items. No separate estimate is provided for small states and union territories due to small sample size. Instead, in such cases the estimates have been provided for a group of states/UT's.

Excluding Leh and Kargil districts of Jammu and Kashmir, interior villages of Nagaland and Andaman and Nicobar Islands villages, the survey was spread over 39,436 households spread over 4,750 villages and 5,120 urban blocks.

UNI SD MIR HS1856