India

India produces more eggs than any country except China, and it does so cheaply enough to place near the bottom of this index in dollar terms. The industry's engine room lies in the south — Tamil Nadu's Namakkal district alone ranks among the world's leading egg clusters — where enormous, vertically integrated layer farms supply both domestic demand and exports to the Gulf.

Prices are unusually transparent by global standards. The National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), a producers' body, publishes suggested daily rates for dozens of cities, and the figures are closely watched across the trade. Retail prices at a kirana store in Mumbai or Bengaluru track those daily rates plus a margin.

The caveat, as throughout this index, is income. A low price in dollars is not the same as a low price in minutes worked — India's statutory wage floor is low and varies by state, so the purchasing-power widget on this page tells a markedly different story from the sticker price. The figure shown here reflects prices observed daily at BigBasket, one of India's largest online grocers.

This site began recording BigBasket prices on 16 June 2026. Measured per ten eggs, the monthly median rose from about ₹92 in June to ₹95 in July, then eased to roughly ₹88 in August and ₹87.50 in September before settling near ₹89 in October 2026; individual daily observations ranged from about ₹85 to ₹100. The most recent reading, on 21 October 2026, was about ₹88, close to where tracking began. BigBasket is a single online grocer, and its shelf price sits at a different point in the supply chain from the NECC's daily rates, so the two should not be read as interchangeable; this page does not currently carry an official Indian benchmark series for comparison.

Demand is shaped by diet and the calendar. A substantial share of Indians are vegetarian, and per-capita egg consumption remains modest by international standards despite the country's vast output. Consumption is also seasonal: demand typically softens in the hot summer months and during religious observances such as Shravan and Navratri, when many households avoid eggs, and it strengthens in the cooler winter months. Those swings feed into NECC rates and, through them, into retail prices, giving Indian egg prices a recognisable annual rhythm.