Government initiates work on consumer spending survey

Tags: Economy/Finance National News

The Centre has started the process of conducting the five-year Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) this month.

Important facts

• The questionnaire for the survey has been modified to capture data on items received free of cost from welfare programs of the government.

• Field work for the survey, which for the first time will involve three visits in a year to assess spending patterns in selected households, will begin soon.

• The survey was last conducted in 2017-18, but its findings were not published, citing data quality concerns.

• Therefore, the last official publicly available estimates on consumer spending are from the 2011-12 survey.

What is the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES)?

• CES is traditionally a quinquennial survey conducted by the government’s National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).

• It is designed to collect information about consumption expenditure patterns of urban and rural households across the country.

• The data collected in this survey reveals the average expenditure on goods (food and non-food) and services and helps in estimating the household Monthly per Capita Consumer Expenditure (MPCE).

• The survey is conducted between July and June and this year's exercise is expected to be completed by June 2023.

Need of CES

• There is no official estimate of India's per capita household expenditure.

• It provides separate data sets for rural and urban areas, and different spending patterns for each state and union territory, as well as for different socio-economic groups.

• It also helps to calculate the demand dynamics of the economy.