Government to release new series of retail inflation next month

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 natinal 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.