Consumer Spending Shifts To Online Gaming, Options Trading: CEA Nageswaran
The CEA observed that much of urban consumption is increasingly moving from listed to unlisted companies, with inadequate data capture for services consumption.

V Anantha Nageswaran, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, flagged a shift in India’s consumption trends, pointing to a growing diversion of consumer spending towards online gaming and options trading, while speaking at a Mumbai event on Wednesday.
Shedding light on the data points related to consumer participation in online gaming, he mentioned that in July alone, monthly spending on online gaming stood at about Rs1 0,000 crore — implying an annualised run rate of approximately Rs 1.2 lakh crore.
While drawing parallels with speculation in options and derivatives, Nageswaran mentioned that “In these situations, it is the house that builds and not speculates.”
The CEA observed that much of urban consumption is increasingly moving from listed to unlisted companies, with inadequate data capture for services consumption.
He cited UPI transaction data as one way to track spending patterns in the services sector. The consumption slowdown last year, he said, was largely due to tight credit and liquidity conditions, prompting the Union Budget to announce substantial middle-class tax cuts. The Reserve Bank of India had also cut policy rates by 100 basis points and ensured a liquidity surplus to support growth.
On artificial intelligence (AI), the CEA stressed the need for caution, noting concerns over resource intensity (water and power), cultural and safety issues, and political considerations. While AI adoption has created many formal jobs in low-value services over the past two decades, employability remains a challenge.
Even the allocation of GPUs to India is yet to be fully realised. To compete with the US and China, he said, India must address both technological and resource gaps through coordinated efforts between the public and private sectors.