National Sample Survey 2007-2008 (64th round) - Schedule 10.2 - Employment, Unemployment and Migration Particulars

Data file: NSS64_Sch10_bk_7

Block 7: Household consumer expenditure: Household consumer expenditure is the sum total of monetary values of all goods and services consumed (out of purchase or procured otherwise) by the household on domestic account during a specific reference period. The definition of household consumer expenditure and the procedure for evaluating it will be the same as for Schedule 1.0. Though instructions for filling in this block are given below, the detailed instructions, if required, may be seen in Chapter Five for Schedule 1.0.

This block has been designed to collect information on household consumer expenditure with the aim to arrive at an approximate value of household consumer expenditure, which will serve as proxy for total expenditure that could be obtained through the detailed consumer expenditure Schedule (Schedule 1.0). This approximate value of consumer expenditure would be used for classifying sample households into different levels of living for studying employment and migration characteristics of households in different levels of living. This block contains 19 different components of household consumer expenditure. Considering that an item group may contain different items, an attempt has been made to indicate, in parenthesis, some of the items included in a particular group, so as to facilitate collection of consumer expenditure data for an item group. Two reference periods, viz,. 30 days and 365 days, will be used to record consumption of different groups of items and those are indicated in the headings of columns 3 and 4. To ensure that not much time is taken in canvassing this block, all the items of Schedule 1.0 have been grouped in 19 items of this block. Investigators should not spend too much time for collecting information in this block. Unless the respondents themselves seek clarifications, investigators need not ask about quantities consumed item by item to arrive at sub-total figure.

Sources of consumption: A household procures different items for its consumption by different ways. The different ways of collecting items of consumption are:
1) purchase
2) receipt in exchange of goods and services
3) home-grown/home-produced stock
4) transfer receipts such as gifts, loans, charities, etc., and
5) free collection

Imputation of value: If an item is purchased and consumed by a household, the value of consumption can be taken as its purchase value. But, the value of an item consumed out of commodities received in exchange of goods and services, home-grown/home-produced stock, transfer receipts or free collection requires imputation. The rule for imputation of value of consumption of commodities is given below:
1) the value of goods received in exchange of goods and services will be imputed at the rate of average local retail prices prevailing during the reference period. However, the judgement of the respondent about the price of the goods purchased in exchange is to be taken into account;
2) the value of home-produce will be imputed at the ex-farm or ex-factory rate. This should not include any element of distributive service charges;
3) the value of consumption out of gifts, loans, free collection, etc., will be imputed at the average local retail prices prevailing during the reference period;
4) the value of consumption out of purchase will be the value at which the purchase was made.

Special care is to be taken to ensure that the items which are consumed by the household out of home grown stock as well as from other sources like free collection, gifts, loans, etc., do not get missed out and necessary probing is to be done to include such consumption, if any, in the total consumption of the household.