India to release CPI inflation data from February 21: chief statistician

By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will start releasing monthly consumer price inflation data from February 21, which will also capture price movement in the services sector, to provide internationally comparable data on retail prices, the country's chief statistician said on Wednesday.

The price movement in the services sector, which constitutes around 55 percent of Indian economy, is not reflected in the wholesale price index, which is India's main gauge of inflation.

"From this month's release onwards, we will be releasing year-on-year inflation rate as well," T.C.A. Anant, who heads the statistics department, told Reuters in an interview.

The new series will have 2010 as its base year and aims to provide retail price movements across rural and urban India, the world's second-most populous country. The current CPI series tracks retail spending of only industrial and farm labourers.

The series, which will cover retail prices in five major groups of food, fuel, clothing, housing and education, will provide a comprehensive reference point for policymakers.

"It will become a major source of data and we expect, as it is incorporated into various models, that people use it to track the economy," Anant said.

Analysts said the consolidated consumer price inflation data would reflect the actual movement of prices in the economy, which had seen WPI inflation topping 9 percent for a year.

"The WPI is, in fact, not an accurate measure of inflation as it doest not cover the services sector," said N.R. Bhanumurthy, an economist at think-tank National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

"The CPI data, covering services as well, would suitably reflect the price movements over a period of time."

India's WPI inflation eased to 6.55 percent, its lowest level in more than two years in January, while consumer price inflation for industrial workers was 6.5 percent in December.

In the new CPI series, food items have a weightage of 49.71 percent, fuel and light 9.49 percent, clothing, bedding and footwear 4.73 percent, housing rent 9.77 percent, services such as education and medical care, 26.31 percent.

GROWTH ESTIMATE

Anant said third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) estimates would be released by month end, and the advanced estimates, based on the macro-economic data available until December, suggest that the growth could be lower in the second half of 2011/12 ending March, than the first half.

"We have come up with the full-year estimate of 6.9 percent, so implicitly we have recomputed the growth for the remaining half year in the advanced estimate at 6.5 percent."

(Editing by Malini Menon)