India's new hunger crisis: When the poor eat less, and the rest eat wrong

In India today, hunger no longer wears just one face.

- BY DR SABINE KAPASI

According to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2023-24, the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) now stands at ₹4,122 in rural India and ₹6,996 in urban India. In real terms, rural MPCE has grown by over 45% and urban by 38% since 2011-12. On the face of it, this should be good news.

But dig a little deeper, and the picture changes. While caloric poverty may be declining, India now faces a far more complex nutrition challenge: the double burden of malnutrition, the coexistence of undernutrition among the poor and overnutrition among the affluent. This paradox is India's double burden of malnutrition, and it is rising and regionally fractured.

A Fragmented Plate Rural India's bottom 5% saw a 22% rise in monthly spending. Yet, the nutritional quality of that spending is harder to pin down. In poorer states like Jharkhand or Odisha, where public provisioning helps fill a significant dietary gap, free food accounts for 3-4% of real consumption, raising concerns about micronutrient intake and long-term health impacts. These families may now have enough to eat. But are they eating what they need?