Milk occupies giant share in Haryana’s food bill; rural Rajasthan spends least on eggs, fish & meat

Even in the urban areas of Haryana, spending on milk and milk products was high at 33.1 percent, only third to urban Rajasthan and Punjab.

The sharp rise in share of spending on beverages and processed food by Indian households caught everyone’s eyes, but that may not be true in every state — Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, among others.

Rural Haryana spends 41.7 percent of its total food expenditure on milk and milk products, shows a detailed report on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on June 7.

Even in the urban areas of Haryana, spending on milk and milk products was high at 33.1 percent, only third to urban Rajasthan and Punjab.

This is in stark contrast to the trend given that both in rural and urban India, the share of spending on beverages and processed food in total food consumption has been maximum in 2022-23 for almost all the major states. Some other exceptions to this rule were Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh for milk and milk products and Kerala for eggs, meat and fish.

In February, the government had released a factsheet based on the findings of the report, which had shown that beverages and processed food had the highest share among spending on food at an all-India level. The government has now released the full report which offers granular data.

In 2022-23, food accounted for about 46 percent of the value of the average rural Indian households’ consumption, within which the contribution of beverages, refreshments and processed food has been the highest (9.62 percent).

And, similarly in the total of 39 percent, the largest contributor for urban India was beverages, refreshments and processed food (10.64 percent).

Unlike most states, rural Kerala spent the most at 23.5 percent of its total food expenditure on egg, fish and meat. This is almost double of the all-India average 10.6 percent.

In contrast, rural Haryana’s share of expenditure on eggs, meat and fish was the lowest at 2.1 percent in total food consumption across all categories and among all major states, while for the urban counterpart it was Rajasthan at 2.3 percent for the exact same parameters.

India's fact sheet on the latest Household Consumer Expenditure Survey on February 24 had revealed that rural households are spending more than their urban counterpart. The share of food in total monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) was 39 percent and that of non-food categories was 61 percent for 2022-23.

In the rural food basket, the percentage of MPCE spent on cereals more than halved to 4.89 percent in 2022-23 from 10.69 percent in 2011-12. Meanwhile, the share of consumption expenditure on milk and milk products has gone up slightly, while that of vegetables edged down.

In Urban India, spending on cereals was down sharply, while that on