Consumption inequality of Per-capita expenditure on food in India

India is the second most populated country of the world and has a well-established socio-democratic system. India has also witnessed increasing growth and has got attention across the Globe. India's high growth, however, has not been across boards and as a result we have failed to reduce or minimise inequality. Debate on inequality, especially inequality of consumption expenditure on food is not new and in fact fair attention has already been given to the subject by the academia, researchers and public policy framers. What has perhaps not been studied is the pattern of this inequality for the different segments of the population during the last twenty years. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. In this paper, Gini coefficient of consumption expenditure has been calculated as a measure of consumption inequality. In the study, inequality of per-capita food expenditure has been measured for different categories of population viz. Social Groups, Religions, Level of Living, Family Size and Education level of head of family, separately for Rural and Urban India, during the years 199394, 1999–2000, 2004–05, 2009–10 and 2011–12. Further, the analysis has been done for different food items like Cereals, Pulses, Milk, Cooking oils, Vegetables, Fruits and Meat Products and Egg. For the calculation of Gini coefficient, data on households consumption expenditure collected by National Sample Survey office during the period 1993–94, 1999–2000, 2004–05, 2009–10 and 2011–12 have been used.