What is Consumer Expenditure Survey? What is the status of it’s recent survey?
The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) is usually conducted at quinquennial intervals and the last survey on consumer expenditure was conducted in the 68th round between July 2011 to June 2012.
The NSS Consumer Expenditure Survey generates estimates of household Monthly Per Capita Consumer Expenditure (MPCE) and the distribution of households and persons over the MPCE classes.
Designed to collect information regarding expenditure on consumption of goods and services (food and non-food) consumed by households, the results of the survey, after release, are also used for rebasing of the GDP and other macro-economic indicators.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation have decided that the findings of the Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017-2018 will not be released due to data quality issues and the ministry would separately examine the feasibility of conducting the next such survey in 2020-2021.
The latest consumption expenditure survey, titled 'Key Indicators: Household Consumer Expenditure in India', reported drop in consumer spending for the first time since 1973 due to weak rural demand, indicating an increase in poverty in India in recent years.
The report revealed that the average sum of money a person spent in a month dropped by 3.7 per cent to Rs 1,446 in FY18 (2017-18) from Rs 1,501 in FY12 (2011-12). The numbers had been adjusted for inflation, taking FY10 (2009-10) as the base year.
