In an attempt to modernize India’s inflation measurement system, the government is expected to change the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) base year to 2022-23 and implement the Producer Price Index (PPI).
Furthermore, Praveen Mahto, DPIIT‘s Principal Economic Adviser will be addressed, the government has scheduled a briefing on the topic for Tuesday.
Saurabh Garg, Secretary of MoSPI, stated that “we have utilized WPI 2022-23 data, which has been internally accessible to us, so that we don’t have to alter the April IIP data, which we anticipate to be publicly available within the next few weeks. ”
The base year for the revised WPI series will be 2022-23, as opposed to the 2011-12 base year that is used in the current series.
Even after the introduction of the new index, Garg stated that the shift from WPI to output PPI would not take place right away, adding that the government would first evaluate the stability and dependability of the new series before using it more widely.
He noted that the current approach for calculating the WPI means that the difference between the WPI and the output PPI in India is unlikely to be significant.
A day after releasing the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with the revised base year of 2022–23, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) announced that it had already employed updated WPI deflators with the new base year for compiling value-reported items in the index.
In February, the administration stated that India’s statistical system is undergoing extensive modernisation with the GDP base year being revised to 2022-23, the CPI base year being revised to 2024, and the IIP base year moving to 2022-23.
“The WPI’s base year revision is also underway. According to an official declaration, the current WPI will be used as a deflator until the revised WPI is released.
In addition, MoSPI intends to integrate the Producer Price Index (PPI) shortly. PPI measures changes in the prices of products and services that producers purchase and sell, it further stated.