Since June 2020, various studies have suggested that the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in India caused severe disruptions to the food supply chain, large levels of unemployment, an increase in vulnerabilities for migrant workers, and gendered violence at home, among others. In this article, the author analysed the Consumption Pyramid datasets to understand the household consumption expenditure patterns both in rural & urban India.
The data reveals that there was a decline in household expenditures in both rural and urban India between April 2019 and October 2020, with a significant decline of 35% in household expenditures in April 2020, a month after the nationwide lockdown. This reduction in total expenditure is mirrored by a similar decline in their share of health expenditures to total as compared to the pre-pandemic period.
The household health expenditures have reduced from 4% to 1% and the household food expenditure has gone up by 8% between June 2019 to 2020 for both rural & urban households.
