Milk expenditure in Indian households: How does Karnataka compare?

Milk inflation higher in Karnataka

Milk and milk products are the second biggest expenditure for an average rural Indian household after processed food and beverages, accounting for 18% of their food budget and 8.3% of their total budget in 2022-23.

Over the past decade, milk’s share of household budgets has increased, rising to 18% of the food budget in 2022-23 from 15% in 2011-12, according to a Moneycontrol analysis.

An increase in milk prices now impacts inflation and household budgets more than it did earlier. On Tuesday, the Karnataka Milk Federation raised milk prices by 5% or Rs 2 per litre. The state’s milk inflation at 6.34% in May was the highest compared with all other states. However, the average

Karnataka household may not be as affected by milk prices as some other states.

Karnataka’s average spending on milk and milk products is, however, lower than the national average.

An analysis of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data released earlier this month shows that 12 of 18 major states for which data is available spent less on milk than the national average of 18%. In Karnataka, while milk is the second-largest expenditure for rural households, they only spent 11.8% of their food budget on it. In comparison, a rural household in Rajasthan spent 35.5% of their total food budget on milk, while Punjab spent 34.7% of their food budget.

Odisha spent the least on milk and milk products across major Indian states, with the commodity accounting for just 6.8% of the rural household’s food budget.

Milk and milk products rate slightly higher in an average Indian urban household’s food budget.

The average urban household spends less on food than a rural one, but milk’s share of the food budget is higher at 18.4%. For Karnataka, the share was only slightly higher at 11.9% compared with 11.8% earlier.

The commodity accounted for a third of urban household’s budget in Punjab and Rajasthan and a quarter in Uttar Pradesh.