New Delhi: For presenting a more
accurate and realistic price situation, government will release next month a
new series of Consumer Price Index (CPI) with 2012 as base year for computing
retail inflation rate.
The first
series (revised) would be compiled for January which will be released on
February 12.
From January 2016 onwards,
inflation rates would be compiled using the actual CPI of the revised series,
according to an official release
The Central Statistics Office
(CSO) has been releasing Consumer Price Indices (CPI) for Rural, Urban and
Combined, at state/UTs and all India level, since January 2011.
“Now the CSO is in the process of
revising the Base Year from 2010=100 to 2012=100,” it said adding that with
this (base) revision, the gap between Price Reference Year (Base Year) and the
Weight Reference Year has been minimised.
Apart from base revision, a number
of methodological improvements have been introduced in the revised series.
Prices of Antyodaya Anna Yojanna
(AAY) have also been included in addition to Above Poverty Line (APL) &
Below Poverty Line (BPL) prices being taken in the existing series.
The weight of food and beverages
would be 45.86 in the new series compared to 47.58 in 2010 series for national
index.
The weight of fuel and light
segment would be 6.84 in the new series which is 9.49 in the 2010 series.
The weight of clothing and
footware segment would be increased to 6.53 from 4.73. The weight of housing
will also be increased to 10.07 from 9.77.
The weight of pan, tobacco and
intoxicants will be increased to 2.38 from 2.13. Similarly the weight of
miscellaneous will also be increased to 28.32 from 26.31 in the new series.
The number of priced items has
been changed from 437 to 448 in rural and from 450 to 460 in urban at all India
level.
In the revised series, 11 new
priced items have been added, without dropping any item, in rural sector at all
India level. In case of urban, 7 priced items have been dropped and 17 new
priced items have been added.
