India revises its wholesale price index

The government will release the revised series of wholesale price index (with a 2004-05 base) tomorrow (14 September 2010) with the committee of secretaries (CoS) approving the release of the new series at its meeting last month.

Simultaneously, the release of the current series of WPI (with 1993-94 as its base) will be discontinued, an official release said today.

The revised WPI series has a representative commodity basket of 676 items and uses a new weighting diagram reflecting the current structure of the economy, the release said. 

The data will be based on 5,482 price quotations selected from across the country for the various items in the commodity basket, substantially increasing the number of quotations in comparison to the existing series. 

Some of the important items included in the new series basket are flowers, lemon and crude petroleum in the `primary articles' group and ice cream, canned meat, palm oil, readymade/instant food powder, mineral water, computer stationary, leather products, scooter / motorcycle tyre, polymers, petrochemical intermediates, granites, marbles, gold and silver, construction machinery, refrigerators, computers, dish antenna, transformer, microwave oven, communication equipments (telephone instruments), TV sets, VCD, washing machine and auto parts in the 'manufactured products' group.

The new series of WPI is based on the recommendations of the working group headed by Abhijit Sen, member, Planning Commission. The working group submitted its technical report in May 2008 and recommended the change of the base year to 2004-05. 

A comparison of weights, number of items and the number of quotations in the major commodity groups in the current series and the new series is given below:

The Technical Advisory Committee on Statistics of Prices and Cost of Living of the Central Statistical Organisation had also approved the shift in the base year, selection of commodity basket and derivation of weighting diagram with the new series of WPI at its meeting held on 31 December 2009, the release added.