New Delhi, Jan 31:  A majority of Indians are finding it difficult to manage their expenses, showed an IANS-CVoter pre-budget survey.

Around 65.8 per cent respondents in the survey said that current expenses have become difficult to manage, while 30 per cent people said that although expenses have gone up, they are in manageable limits.

A miniscule 2.1 per cent of the respondents said that their expenses have gone down in the past one year and another 2.1 per cent could not respond on the matter.

The survey also showed that with a massive impact of the pandemic on businesses and people’s earnings, purchasing power of most Indians weakened in the past one year.

Along with the impact on the earnings of the common man, what also affected the people are the high commodity prices, including that of food.

For most of 2020, inflation remained at elevated levels, on the back of high food and fuel prices.

It is because of inflationary concerns that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) too has kept the lending rates intact after sharp cuts during the initial phase of the pandemic.

The survey also showed that over 70 per cent people felt the adverse impact of high commodity prices in the past one year.

The sample size of the poll is 4,000 plus and the fieldwork for the survey was done in third-fourth week of January 2021. The theme of the survey is “Expectations from the Union Budget”.