Centre forms 18-member working group to revise WPI base year to 2022-23

The Union government on Thursday announced the constitution of a working group to revise the base year for the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) from the existing 2011-12 to 2022-23.

The 18-member working group, chaired by Prof. Ramesh Chand, member, NITI Aayog, comprises representatives from various government departments, economic advisory bodies, and non-official experts, according to an official release.

Renowned economist Surjit Bhalla, Shamika Ravi, member, Economic Advisory Council to PM, and Crisil's chief economist Dharmakirti Joshi are among the non-official members included in the group.

It has been tasked with revising the commodity basket of WPI and Producer Price Index (PPI) in light of structural changes in the economy and recommending improvements in the price collection system, computational methodologies, and the transition from WPI to PPI.

As per the Terms of Reference (ToR), the group will be suggest the commodity basket of WPI and PPI with base year 2022-23 in the light of structural changes in the economy; review the existing system of price collection and suggest changes for improvement; and decide on the computational methodology to be adopted for WPI / PPI.

It will also examine the methodology for compilation of PPI, suggest further improvement in compilation and presentation and recommend roadmap for switch over from WPI to PPI.

The government has directed the working group to submit its final report within 18 months.

At present, the index has a total of 697 items, including primary articles (117), fuel and power (16), and manufactured products (564).

WPI revision is a periodic exercise. Earlier, there was a plan to revise the base year from 2011-12 to 2017-18.

During the winter session of the Parliament, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Statistics and Programme Implementation Rao Inderjit Singh informed the Rajya Sabha about the formation of an Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) for the GDP revision.

The 26-member ACNAS, chaired by economist Biswanath Goldar, is working to refine data collection methodologies and identify new data sources to reflect economic structural changes.