Key Details
A paper in the National Statistics Office’s Sarvekshana journal uses imputation — the assignment of estimated monetary values to goods received free of cost — to compare household consumption before and after selected welfare benefits are counted.
Finding | Estimate |
|---|---|
Population moving to a higher consumption band | 15.8%, or about 22 crore people |
Rural population moving to a higher band | 18.8% |
Urban population moving to a higher band | 8.4% |
Rural consumption-inequality measure, before → after | 0.266 → 0.261 |
Urban consumption-inequality measure, before → after | 0.314 → 0.309 |
The analysis uses the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey. Its valuation covers selected food and non-food goods, but not publicly provided healthcare or education services.
Free Goods Change How Household Resources Are Measured
The survey records goods households obtain without paying their full value. The researchers assign estimated prices to selected items—including foodgrains, school uniforms, footwear and bicycles—and add those amounts to monthly per-person consumption expenditure. They then check whether the revised figure places a household above a boundary between consumption bands.
On this measure, about 22 crore people move to a higher band. That does not mean 22 crore people received benefits for the first time, gained cash income or crossed a poverty line. It means the value of goods received changes where their households sit relative to consumption boundaries set using expenditure figures without those values.
The Measured Gains Are Stronger at the Lower End
Movement is more pronounced among households that began in lower consumption bands, particularly in rural India. Including the selected goods also produces a modest reduction in measured consumption inequality in both rural and urban areas.
The extent of movement varies substantially by state. Among the 18 major states compared, the estimated share is highest in West Bengal at 40.5%, followed by Chhattisgarh at 29.2%, Assam at 29.0% and Karnataka at 28.4%. These figures describe movement across the study’s bands, not state poverty-reduction rates.
What Is Imputation?
Imputation means assigning an estimated monetary value to a good received without paying its full price. Here, it lets the researchers compare household consumption figures with and without selected welfare goods. The estimated value is not money deposited in a household’s account.
Policy Relevance
The paper shows why an expenditure figure alone may give an incomplete picture of the resources available to a household. It also offers a way to examine whether selected transfers are concentrated among people lower in the consumption distribution. The state differences make disaggregated assessment useful; the omission of healthcare and education means the exercise does not measure the full value of public support.
Follow the Full Paper Here: Sarvekshana, 121st Issue, “Impact of In-Kind Social Transfer on Level of Living of Indian Households”