FINANCE MINISTER (SHRI PRANAB MUKHERJEE)
(a) to (f) : A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 347 BY SHRI MAHABAL MISHRA DUE FOR ANSWER ON AUGUST 26, 2011.
(a) to (f) The current series of WPI at base 2004-05 constitutes 676
commodities and 5482 quotations. These items in the index basket are
as representative as possible, and efforts are made to include all the
important items in the economy during the base year. The importance of
an item in the market depends on its traded value and Gross Value of Output
(GVO). At wholesale level, bulk transactions of goods and services are
sought to be captured. As services are not yet covered so far, the WPI
basket mainly consists of items from goods sector. In the absence of
single source of data on traded value, the selection procedures followed for
agricultural commodities and non-agricultural commodities are also different.
There are three consumer price indices (CPIs) traditionally released at the
national level to reflect the fluctuations in retail prices of goods and
services pertaining to specific segments of population in the country. The
basket of CPI for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) based on 2001included 120-360
items over 78 centres, CPI for Agriculture Labourers (CPI-AL) and CPI for
Rural Labourers (CPI-RL) both with base year 1986-87 included 260 items among
600 sample villages in 20 states. In addition there is now the new series of
CPI-(U+R) based on 2010=100 for both rural and urban areas and also combined
has been introduced from January 2011 and includes 456 items and 1114 quotations
from 310 towns and 1180 villages. The weighting diagram is derived from
Consumption Expenditure Survey (2004-05). Price indices and inflation rates for
2011 are given in table below:
WPI CPI(IW) CPI(AL) CPI(RL) CPI- (R+U) 2004-05=100 2001 =100 1986-87 =100 1986-87 =100 Combined 2010=100
Index Infla- Index Infla- Index Infla- Index Infla- Index Infla- tion tion tion tion tion (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Jan-11 148.0 9.47 188 9.30 589 8.67 588 8.69 106.0 NA
Feb-11 148.1 9.54 185 8.82 584 8.55 584 8.55 105.0 NA
Mar-11 149.5 9.68 185 8.82 585 9.14 584 8.96 106.0 NA
Apr-11 152.1 9.74 186 9.41 587 9.11 587 9.11 106.2 NA
May-11 152.4 9.56 187 8.72 592 9.63 592 9.63 107.1 NA
Jun-11 153.0 9.44 189 8.62 598 9.32 597 9.14 108.8 NA
Jul-11 154.0 9.22 Â - - 604 9.03 604 9.03 110.4 NA
NA : Not available, it would be available from January 2012, when the indices for one year are available.
Note : WPI and CPI-(R+U) data for June and July 2011 are provisional and CPI-IW for July 2011 would be release on 30th August 2011.
There is no proposal under consideration to change the monthly periodicity and
methodology in terms of compilation of indices. However, there is a proposal
to revise CPI-IW current base 2001=100 to a more recent base year, preferably,
2011=100.
