Chandigarh has emerged as India’s highest-spending city on a per-household basis, according to The Many Urban Indias, a report by People’s Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) and Tata Sons. An average household in the city spends nearly Rs 19 lakh a year, putting Chandigarh ahead of India’s biggest metropolitan centres on this measure. The study examines how households across India’s 100 leading cities earn, spend, save and borrow.
Chandigarh has the highest average household spending in India
The report identifies Chandigarh as a Frontier city, a category comprising the smaller urban centres among India’s top 100 cities by population.
Chandigarh is identified as the city with the highest average household consumption in the report. As per the study, an average household in Chandigarh spends nearly Rs 19 lakh annually. The distinction is about average spending per household, not the total amount spent across the entire city. This matters because larger cities have many more households and can generate a much bigger overall consumer market even when their average household spending is lower.The report identifies Chandigarh as a Frontier city, a category comprising the smaller urban centres among India’s top 100 cities by population. It places the city among the country’s highest-spending urban centres, alongside Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The report also highlights Chandigarh’s household financial position, noting that it has high levels of savings and low levels of debt.
Chandigarh and Bengaluru have the highest average household income
Chandigarh’s spending figures become more interesting when viewed alongside household income. According to the study, Bengaluru and Chandigarh have the highest average household income in India, at Rs 28 lakh per year. India’s six largest metropolitan centres- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad are grouped together as the Big Six in the study. They have more than 10 million people each and account for a substantial share of the country’s urban economic activity.
Delhi NCR: India’s biggest urban consumption market
Delhi NCR is a major part of the report’s consumption story. The study says that Delhi NCR has a total consumption market worth $126 billion. This is nearly as much as Mumbai and Bengaluru combined. The report attributes this to two factors: Delhi NCR has around 7.5 million households, compared with 4.6 million in Mumbai. Its average annual household consumption is nearly Rs 15 lakh. This gives Delhi NCR a large overall consumption market, even though Chandigarh leads on average household spending.
Delhi NCR’s transportation spending alone is bigger than some cities
One of the report’s more striking findings concerns transportation. Delhi NCR households spend more than $33 billion annually on transportation, according to the study. That amount is larger than the total consumption market of Pune or Ahmedabad. The report also estimates that Delhi NCR’s annual dairy consumption is around $10 billion.
Mumbai: More high-income households, but not the highest average spending
Mumbai remains one of India’s major consumption centres, but the report places it behind Chandigarh on average household spending. The study says that Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Jabalpur have higher average household spending than Mumbai. At the same time, Mumbai leads the 100-city group in the share of high-income households.
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The report defines high-income households as those earning more than Rs 36 lakh annually at 2025-26 prices. Their share across the 100 cities has increased to 12%, from 3% a decade earlier.
Bengaluru: Highest average income, but Chandigarh leads consumption
Bengaluru is another important comparison in the report. The city shares the highest average household income position with Chandigarh, at Rs 28 lakh per year. However, the report says that Chandigarh and Thiruvananthapuram have the highest average household consumption in India. It also identifies Surat as a city where average household consumption is higher than Bengaluru’s. This means Bengaluru’s high average income does not automatically translate into the highest average household spending.The report groups the cities into four categories:
- Big Six: Cities with populations above 10 million.
- Boomtowns: Cities with populations between 2.5 million and 10 million.
- Breakout cities: Cities with populations between 1.5 million and 2.5 million.
- Frontier cities: Cities with populations between 0.5 million and 1.5 million.
Chandigarh falls in the Frontier category, while Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru are part of the Big Six.
