'Rich spend less on healthy food'

NEW DELHI: India's rising consumption level is edging the country into a nutritional black hole. With greater amounts of money in hand to spend, as the quick estimates of national accounts for 2007-08 show, people have begun moving away from cereals, proteins and other healthy foods towards beverages and addictive items like tobacco.

Alarm bells would be ringing about how India's nutritional security may be getting challenged even as its economic security gets better. For a country that still can't provide enough for its poor, the results threaten that the rich and middle classes could be heading towards the other end of the spectrum ��� spending on unhealthy food.

The statistics on private final consumption expenditure ��� an indication of consumer spending trends ��� showed that the spending on food, beverages and tobacco continued to be the largest chunk of household budgets, at about 42.3%, in 2007-08 . But it has come down compared to 2000-2001 , when it stood at 48.2%.

The expenditure on cereals & bread has shown a decline from 11.7% in 2000-01 to 9.6% in 2007-08 . Spending on pulses has dipped from 1.2% to 1.1% and on fruits & vegetables from 9.5% to 7.7% between the same period. Similar is the case for other health food as spending on milk & milk products has declined from 7.1% to 6.2% and on meat, egg & fish from 4.0% to 3.7% between 2000-01 to 2007-08 .

On the contrary, spending on unhealthy things like beverages, pan & intoxicants has increased from 1.6% in 2000-01 to 3.1% in 2007-08 . Similarly, spending on hotels & restaurants has also shown increase from 1.9% to 2.6% in the same period .

With growing economy, India is spending more on services as the data reflects that the fastest growing components of household spending were related to the service sector, such as healthcare , communications and education. Consumers tend to spend relatively less on food and more on healthcare and education as their incomes increase.

The quick estimates for 2007-08 of national output, spending, saving and investment released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) reflect clear hike in spending on medical care & health services which grew from 4.7% in 2000-01 to 5.7% in 2007-08 . During the same period, transportation and communication expenditure grew from 14.4% to 16.3% of the total household expenditure . Similarly, spending on recreation , education & cultural services has gone up from 3.7% to 5% of the Rs 26,05,859 crore consumption expenditure in the domestic market in 2007-08 . Also, private consumption expenditure on durables (furniture , furnishings, appliances and services) grew from 3.3% to 4% during the same period.