diwali is likely to be a subdued affair this year as middle and lower income families cut their festive spends by 43 a survey by industry body assocham has said the study has attributed this reduction in spending to high prices of daily food items education costs and grim job market scenario majority 56 of the respondents said they planned to spend less citing increasing prices of food items as one of the key reasons another 21 said value of their savings had gone down while 15 said they were setting aside their savings for big purchases a relatively smaller number 8 held rising emis equated monthly installments responsible for the slashing their festive budget last diwali middle and lower middle income families had said they would spend close to half their salary on shopping sweets gifting and so on assocham said the survey conducted in october polled 1650 respondents across delhi mumbai kolkata chennai ahmedabad hyderabad pune dehradun and chandigarh among other cities in curtailing festive spends delhi ranked first among the cities followed by ahmedabad mumbai and chandigarh by preeti kulkarni et bureau published on nov 9 2015 at 0318 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etretail app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app diwali survey savings spending assocham consumers homenewsindustryconsumers to cut festive spending by 43 assocham