Knowledge from over-the-top (OTT) platforms and on-line portals for airfare and rail fare might quickly be a part of India’s inflation basket. India’s statistics ministry is exploring tapping into different information sources akin to on-line platforms for air and rail fares, OTT providers, and administrative information for worth information for petrol, diesel and LPG for the brand new Shopper Value Index (CPI) sequence, Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) instructed The Indian Categorical in an interview.
The brand new CPI sequence, which is predicted to return out from the primary quarter of 2026, can be prone to instantly incorporate information from Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Company (IRCTC) and Petroleum Planning and Evaluation Cell (PPAC).
“For the brand new CPI sequence, MoSPI is increasing its strategy by exploring different information sources, akin to on-line platforms for airfare, rail fare, OTT platforms and administrative information for worth information of petrol, diesel and LPG. Discussions are ongoing with IRCTC, underneath the Ministry of Railways, and the PPAC underneath the Ministry of Petroleum and Pure Gasoline for direct switch of knowledge for integration in CPI,” Garg stated.
The Ministry can be exploring using scanner information and internet scraping with an purpose to reinforce the accuracy, effectivity and comprehensiveness of worth information assortment, Garg stated. “The opportunity of gathering worth information from e-commerce web sites can be being thought of,” he added.
The Ministry is at the moment endeavor a base revision train for all main datasets akin to CPI-based inflation, Index of Industrial Manufacturing (IIP) and Gross Home Product (GDP). For GDP, the brand new sequence is scheduled to be launched on February 27, 2026 with monetary yr 2022-23 as the brand new base yr, Garg stated.
The revised base yr for IIP has additionally been tentatively recognized as 2022 -23, Garg stated, including that the IIP with the revised base can be launched from 2026-27. At current, the bottom yr for GDP and IIP is 2011-12 and for CPI is 2012.
For CPI, 2024 has been recognized because the revised base yr. “…the merchandise basket and the weightage of the objects can be determined primarily based on the NSO’s Family Shopper Expenditure Survey (HCES) carried out in 2023-24. The brand new CPI sequence is predicted to be printed from the primary quarter of 2026,” Garg stated.
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Amongst different different datasets being tapped by the Ministry, Garg stated information of Items and Companies Tax (GST), e-Vahan portal, UPI transactions from NPCI are going for use for GDP calculation by the Nationwide Statistics Workplace (NSO) along with using information from Workplace of Controller Common of Accounts (CGA), MCA-21, RBI. MoSPI has additionally used the GSTN (GST Community) database for its new service sector survey, Annual Survey of Service Sector Enterprises (ASSSE).
The newest HCES for 2023-24 had included questions on streaming providers, air fare and rail fare. At current, the retail inflation basket primarily based on CPI (Mixed) has a weight of 0.077 % for air fare (financial system class), 0.185 per cent for railway fare, 2.187 per cent for petrol for automobiles and 0.148 per cent for diesel for automobiles. There’s a 0.08 per cent weightage for web bills, 0.82 per cent weight for month-to-month prices for cable TV connection, and 1.839 per cent for cell phone prices.
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