What Does This Dashboard Measure?
The dashboard provides two complementary views of food consumption at the household level. The mean consumption quantity (grams per day per Adult Female Equivalent) captures how much of each food group a household typically consumes. The proportion consuming captures the share of households that report any consumption of that food group.
Together, these metrics reveal both the intensive and extensive margins of India's dietary patterns — showing not just how much people eat, but whether they eat particular foods at all, and how both dimensions vary with income and demographics.
What Food Groups Are Covered?
The analysis spans ten major food groups — comprising 103 individual food items — that together capture the essential structure of Indian diets:
What Can You Explore?
Temporal Comparison
Switch between HCES 2011-12 and 2023-24, or overlay both rounds to see how consumption patterns have evolved over the decade.
Demographic Breakdowns
Disaggregate by sector (rural/urban), state, religion, social group, month, household head gender, and presence of children.
Expenditure Gradient
Visualise how consumption varies across ten expenditure deciles — revealing Engel curve patterns and how diets transform with rising incomes.
Dual Metrics
Toggle between mean quantity (grams/day per AFE) and proportion of households consuming — capturing both intensity and participation.
Confidence Intervals & Downloads
All estimates include Bayesian 95% credible intervals. Export individual charts as PNG/SVG or download the full underlying dataset as CSV.
How Have Food Prices Changed?
Beyond quantities consumed, understanding how unit-values have evolved is essential to the food security picture. The interactive sunburst shows annualised compound growth rates of food prices (₹/kg) between 2011-12 and 2023-24 — broken down by food group, state classification (large states, smaller states & NE, UTs), and individual states, for both rural and urban sectors. The arc width for each state is proportional to the magnitude of its price change.
Unit-values derived from HCES expenditure and quantity data · Annualised growth = (P2023/P2011)1/12 − 1
How Is Consumption Estimated?
The analysis is based on unit-level data from India's Household Consumer Expenditure Surveys (HCES) conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) — specifically the 68th round (2011-12) and the most recent 2023-24 round conducted by MoSPI.
For each household, daily per-capita food consumption (in grams per Adult Female Equivalent) is computed from reported monthly quantities across ten food groups. Consumption is measured in two ways: the mean quantity consumed (grams/day/AFE) and the proportion of households consuming each food group.
All estimates are produced using a Bayesian multilevel framework, yielding posterior means with 95% credible intervals. Estimates are disaggregated by expenditure decile (using log MPCE) and by seven demographic dimensions: sector, state, religion, social group, month, household head gender, and presence of children.
Data Sources & Attribution
Survey data: NSSO 68th Round HCES (2011-12) and MoSPI HCES (2023-24)
Research: Centre for research on the Economics of Climate, Food, Forestry and the Environment (CECFEE), ISI-Delhi Centre
Analysis: Dr Shamika Ravi (Member, EAC to PM) & Dr Mudit Kapoor (CECFEE, EPU, ISI-Delhi Center)
Ready to explore the data?
Launch Dashboard