New consumer price index to be released from 18 February

The new series of consumer price index (CPI) numbers for rural, urban and combined (rural + urban) with base (January to December 2010 =100) for January 2011 will be released on 18 February, the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) said in a release today.

These indices will be available for five major groups, namely, food, beverages and tobacco; fuel and light; housing; clothing, bedding and footwear, and miscellaneous.

The current CPI numbers do not encompass all the segments of the population in the country and as such they do not reflect the true picture of the price behavior in the country. It is therefore necessary to compile a CPI, which takes into account the consumption patterns of all segments of the population, an official release said.

CPI (urban) numbers are compiled at state/UT as well as at all-India level. Weighting diagrams (consumption patterns) of the CPI (urban) have been derived from the results of the NSS 61st round of Consumer Expenditure Survey (2004-05).

For regular price collection, CSO has selected 310 towns, which include all state/UT capitals. Price data are collected in respect of items consumed by the population of the respective state/UT. In all, 1,114 price schedules containing an average of 250 items are canvassed every month. House rent data are also collected from a fixed set of rented dwellings from the selected towns. Prices of items are collected by the field officials of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).

CPI (rural) numbers are compiled at state/UT and all-India levels. To limit the workload to manageable levels and considering the fact that the CPI (rural) would provide the price changes for the entire rural population of the country, a total of 1,181 villages have been selected at all India level.