Mapping the Consumption Expenditure Pattern of West Bengal: Some Revelations on the Recent State of Development

Abstract

Abstract: The structural transformation of the Indian economy from an agriculture based economy to service sector based economy has resulted in gradual hybridization of the Indian consumer society in the dart of adopting the western culture. The rampant transformation is accompanied by increasing use of consumer durables. Thus, the Indian economy being one of the largest of its kind has emerged as one of the attractive destinations of the producers’ due to its substantially growing middle class and a slighter growing affluent class of consumers. There has been a series of debates on the prospects and sustainability of this booming consumption demand. Hence the study attempts to explore the current pattern of consumption keeping in view the diversity in pattern of distribution for the state of West Bengal The expenditure pattern depends on various economic, social, geographic and several others factors affected by some external stimuli. Hence, the study attempts to explore the extent of improvement using indicators from the consumption expenditure schedule on the basis of unit level data for the last two NSS rounds available i.e. Round 66th (2009-10) and Round 68th (2011-12). Keeping aside the debates on setting the poverty line, this paper also finds the level of poverty persistent in West Bengal and finds that the poverty is on a steady decline. Development indices have been constructed at the district level and the change in corresponding ranks over the years have been used to indicate the state of development or underdevelopment with respect to the indicator in concern. JEL Classification: I32, O15, P46