Major revision in the way to deduce economic indicators like CPI, IIP, GDP shortly

Revision to base year soon

India is on course to bring in more clarity on the revision of its primary data used to determine economic growth, inflation and industrial production by the end of this fiscal, sources told Moneycontrol.

Most of the government releases like the consumer price index, index of industrial production and the gross domestic product have been using 2011-12 as the base year for calculation, which is likely to get revised soon, according to sources. “The idea is to keep base years for all releases aligned to a single year,” one of them said.

India’s consumer inflation basket will have 2024 as the base year, the Economic Survey 2023-24 had said on July 22, noting that the government will also work towards speeding up the availability of the producer price index, which is likely to replace the wholesale price index.

The government is yet to take a call on whether it would choose 2023-24 or 2024-25 as a base year for the calculation of the GDP. In the previous format, 2011-12 was the base for the GDP, while 2012 was chosen as the base for CPI calculations.

India’s economy grew 8.2 percent in 2023-24, according to government data. The Economic Survey has projected 6.5 – 7 percent as growth for the current fiscal.

It has been over a decade since the revisions were announced last. The government has fast-tracked the release of surveys required for such data revisions. In February, it announced the results of household consumption expenditure survey 2022-23.

It also announced results of the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises in June.

These surveys are necessary for the update of GDP statistics, the sources reasoned.