Rural India’s monthly per capita cereal consumption fell below 10 kgs in 2022-23

In Urban India, spending on cereals is down sharply, while that on milk and milk products went up.

India’s consumption of cereals has seen a steady decline over the period of 1999-2000 to 2022-23.

Monthly per capita cereal consumption in rural India fell below 10 kgs in 2022-23, according to a detailed report on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on June 7.

While in Urban India, consumption of cereals declined to 8.05 kgs in 2022-23 from 9.32 kgs in 2011-12, in rural households it decreased to 9.61 kgs in from 11.23 kgs during the same period.

Among states, the monthly per capita cereal consumption of cereals in rural areas was highest in West Bengal at 11.23 kgs, followed by Odisha, while for the urban counterpart Bihar came on top at 10.45 kgs and Chhattisgarh came in second.

In February, the government had released a factsheet based on the findings of the report, it has now released the full report which offers granular data.

Within cereals, the percentage share in total per capita cereal consumption in rural households was higher for rice at 55.35 kgs followed by wheat at 40.93 kgs, and in urban India, rice was also ahead at 53.20 kgs, and wheat at 44.53 kgs in 2022-23.

And, when it comes to the share of cereals in total expenditure, in rural India it varies from 3 percent (in Haryana, Kerala and Punjab) to 7 percent (in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal). In urban areas, the share varies from 3 percent (in Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu) to 6 percent (in Bihar and Jharkhand).

In the rural food basket, the percentage of monthly per capita consumption expenditure or MPCE 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 is down sharply, while that on milk and milk products went up.

The weight of food items in the MPCE fell to 46.38 percent in 2022-23 for rural India from 52.90 percent in 2011-12 and to 39.17 percent for urban India from 42.62 percent in 2011-12.