Officers' training kicks off to recast consumer price index

India's statistical system is getting ready to revamp the consumer price index (CPI), which is used to measure retail inflation, after over a decade. The ministry of statistics and programme implementation has started conducting training of its officers for change in the CPI series, ET has learnt.

The training involves identification of markets and key shops for collecting statistics, sources informed ET.

The ministry identifies the most frequented shop as a permanent shop in each market and two reserve shops.


"CPI base updation training programme will strengthen the data collectors to identify the correct markets and correct shops for item identification," a source said.

The process also involves identifying items for which prices are to be collected and their specifications. The weights of the items will be decided by the household consumer expenditure survey (HCES), which is currently underway and is due to be completed in July 2024.

"Expert group on base revision has already identified the tentative sample size for the base revision exercise. A comprehensive sampling design has been identified to capture the rural and urban population," said the source cited above.

The ministry has significantly increased its sampling frame for the exercise for more robust results. The training will be conducted by the price statistics division of the ministry, which is in charge of releasing the consumer price index data.

This is the first exercise for base revision which is being conducted after almost a decade. India's consumer price index is based on the household consumer expenditure survey conducted in 2011-12.

The government had junked the 2017-18 household consumer expenditure survey citing data inconsistencies.

The government is conducting two back-to-back surveys for the current HCES. The first survey will be completed this month, after which the government will start conducting the second survey, which will be completed by July next year.

The results will be released after the completion of the two surveys. The government had decided to conduct two surveys to ensure consistency. Experts indicate that India needs to revise its consumer inflation statistics to capture consumption patterns more accurately.