Rising inflation may have burnt a hole in common man’s pocket but Finance Ministry’s chief economic advisor believes otherwise as he brought a novel ‘thali’ concept to otherwise heavy-duty data crunching to drive home the point that affordability of a plate of meal has improved.

Calling it ‘Thalinomics’, Krishnamurthy V Subramanian compared price of standard veg and non-veg meal plates across the country to say that affordability as a factor of daily wage has improved overtime, indicating improved welfare of the common person.

The affordability of vegetarian ‘thalis’ improved by 29 per cent while that of non-vegetarian by 18 per cent between 2006-07 and 2019-20, the Economic Survey said in its chapter ‘Thalinomics -- The Economics of a Plate of Food in India”.

The conclusion has been drawn after analysing the data from the Consumer Price Index for industrial workers for around 80 centres in 25 states/Union Territories from April 2006 to October 2019.

As per the survey, a vegetarian thali comprises a serving of cereals, ‘sabzi and dal’ and the non-vegetarian thali comprises of cereals, sabzi and a non-vegetarian component. 

“Both across India and the four regions - north, south, east and west - we find that the absolute prices of a vegetarian thali have decreased since 2015-16 though it increased during 2019. This is owing to significant moderation in the prices of vegetables and dal from 2015-16 when compared to the previous trend of increasing prices,” the survey said.

In fact, the increase in prices of pulses and vegetables contributed to the increase in the thali price during 2019-20 (April-October).

“If the prices of a vegetarian thali had followed the trend obtained till 2015-16, an average household comprising of five individuals would have had to spend Rs 10,887 more on average per year for eating minimum two healthy thalis a day.