Nutritional Intake in India, 2004-05

Report No. 513 on “Nutritional Intake in India ,2004-05” based on the seventh quinquennial survey on Household Consumer Expenditure carried out during the NSS 61^st round (July, 2004-June, 2005) by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has been released. This is one of the reports in the series of seven reports to be brought out on the basis of the survey. The report is based on the data collected on the food items consumed by the Indian households during the reference period of 30 days prior to the date of the survey. It mainly focuses on intake of nutrients by households in terms of protein, fat and carbohydrates and their conversion into energy units in terms of calories derived from consumption of different groups of food items.

Like all regular NSS surveys, the present survey covered practically the whole of the Indian Union. All States and Union Territories were covered under the survey except some interior areas of Nagaland, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Ladakh and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir. The survey was spread over 7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks covering 79298 rural and 45346 urban households respectively.

Some findings of the survey are given below:

· The results of the Consumer Expenditure Survey during 2004-2005 revealed that on an average an Indian household had 3.93 consumer unit in the rural area and the average number of consumer unit in an urban household was 3.56.

· The Indian rural population continued to draw the major share of their calorie(67.54%) and protein(66.37%) requirement from cereal. The same trend, calorie(56.08) and protein(56.16) has been observed in the urban area.

· The percentage share of food expenditure in total expenditure by Indian population was 55.0% in the rural areas and 42.5% in the urban areas. Relative to the comparable survey results for 1993-94, the share of food expenditure has dropped by 8.2 and 12.2 percentage points in rural and urban areas respectively.

· At all India level the number of meals eaten at home by household members had decreased by 0.57% in the rural areas between 1993-94 and 2004-05. In urban areas popularity of home kitchen had declined by 1.66% over last ten years.

· Average daily intake of calories by rural population has dropped by 106 kcal (4.9 percent) from 2153 kcal to 2047 Kcal from 1993-94 to 2004-05 and by 51 Kcal (2.5 percent) from 2071 to 2020 Kcal in the urban area.

· Population reporting a calorie intake level of “less than 100%” of the norm of 2700 kcal, formed 66 percent of the total in rural areas and 70 percent of the total in urban areas.

· Average daily intake of protein by the Indian population has decreased from 60.2 to 57 grams in the rural area between 1993-94 and 2004-05 and remained stable around 57 grams in the urban area during the same period.

· A significant rise in per capita daily average intake of fat is observed during the decade (1993-94 to 2004-05) in both rural and urban areas. It has increased from 31.4 grams to 35.5 grams (13.1 percent) in rural areas and from 42 grams to 47.5 grams (13 percent) in urban areas.