New consumer price series release on Feb 18

• The government today said the new consumer price series for rural, urban and combined (rural + urban) for January, reflecting the impact of price rise on common man, will be released on February 18.
• These consumer indices will be available for five major groups - food, beverages and tobacco; fuel and light; housing; clothing, bedding and footwear; and miscellaneous.
• The indices will be released for States/Union Territories and all India.
• The government also releases four CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation series - CPI for industrial workers, CPI for agricultural labourers, CPI for rural labourers and CPI for urban non-manual employees - which it will continue to do.
• Besides, wholesale prices are measured by the WPI index.

The present four CPI numbers do not encompass all the segments of the population and as such they "do not reflect the true picture of the price behaviour in the country", Chief Statistician T C A Anant said. "It is therefore, necessary to compile a CPI which takes into account the consumption patterns of all segments of the population," he said on the sidelines of the 15th Conference of Commonwealth Statisticians here.

• The base for the new series will be January-December 2010.
• CPI urban and rural is compiled at State, UT and all India level. For regular price collection for CPI (urban) 310 towns have been selected, while for the rural data, 1,181 villages spread across India have been selected.

The new CPI numbers would be revived on the basis of the results of the next round of Consumer Expenditure Survey scheduled to be conducted during 2011-12 by the National Sample Survey Organisation. Thereafter, revision will be taken every five years.