Labour bureau scheduled to publish new working-class inflation index for Oct 21

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The labour bureau will officially reveal on October 21, Wednesday, a new series pertaining to consumer price index for the industrial workers (CPI-IW), which is used to calibrate the inflation parameters for calculating Dearness allowance (DA) for the government staff employees, the daily compensation for industrial workers and dearness relief for pensioners, an official stated.

The new series will record for alteration in the spending habits of the working class based in the organized sector. For the new series, there will be upgrading of the base year for estimation of CPI-IW from 2001 to 2016. The new series is being introduced by changing consumption habits, the cost prices of various commodities and the spending pattern of the working class for regular jobs.

For inflation index, the base year would be the initial year for estimating inflation index, with the value of 100. The inflation indices of the all other years are given a standard comparison to the base year how understanding the gradation in prices.

The new index estimated will be giving more weight to sectors of education, healthcare, housing, travel and transportation, as the expenditure on these items have increased over elementary items like food. The index will be a great help to the economists for measuring the inflation for getting a clear understanding of the expenditure structure of households.

“The revision is long overdue. Now, it is ready. The new series will be unveiled on October 21,” a labour bureau official revealed.

Presently, India holds the five consumer price indices, three are aligning to working-class. The CPI-IW increased to 5.6% for the month of August, when compared with 5.3% incident in July, as per the fresh data.