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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | New panel for 'reliable' inflation, IIP data-Sidhartha

New panel for 'reliable' inflation, IIP data-Sidhartha

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published Published on Mar 30, 2012   modified Modified on Mar 30, 2012

Under fire over data integrity issues, the government has tasked a panel to revise the wholesale price index (WPI) with the mandate to "enhance the reliability" of official statistics on all inflation measures. 

The 31-member panel, to be headed by Planning Commission member Saumitra Chaudhuri, has also been asked to explore the possibility of getting a single agency to collect data for compiling WPI and industrial production that are hitherto dealt with by separate wings of the government. Although the government did try to rope in a private agency to collect index of industrial production numbers, the experiment did not go far and the process was abandoned a few years ago. 

In recent months, economists, as well as RBI, have been critical of the official data and the central bank had gone to the extent of terming it "analytically bewildering". Earlier this month, when the industrial output data was released, CLSA senior economist Rajiv Malik had said, "Quality issues in economic data are more pronounced in emerging economies than developed economies but India's official industrial production takes the cake. It appears to have a life of its own and its volatility makes sensible forecasting a challenge and also increases the risk of policy mishaps due to incorrect signals." 

The panel has been asked to submit its report by December, indicating the urgency in the government to devise a new index and roll it out at the earliest after testing it. The setting up of the committee in itself is a routine exercise undertaken periodically to rework the commodity basket and the base-year so that the latest consumption trends. So, from the 2004-05 base year, the government is expected to move to 2009-10 or 2010-11 and capture the purchase of new gizmos such as tablets too and reduce the weightage given to others such as desktops as well as the food basket. 

This time, however, the committee that was constituted on March 26, is also being asked to fix the base year for producers price index, which was launched recently, and business service price index that has been in the works for several years and aims to capture price movement in the services sector. 

Times View 

The government's decision to review the entire data collection, collation and calculation mechanism for inflation and industrial production is welcome. It's not just economists who have reservations about official data, even RBI has raised doubts over its reliability. Given the fact that crucial policy decisions depend on official data, this is very worrying. For months, the industrial sector data has ended up surprising most economists and the government has said that there is little that it can do. While it is critical that the basket of products used reflects current consumption trends, it is also important to ensure that effort is made to accurately collect data and the real picture is captured.


The Economic Times, 30 March, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/new-panel-for-reliable-inflation-iip-data/articleshow/12465017.cms


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