With acute manpower shortage plaguing the Centre?s statistical department the Centre is considering seeking the help of the country?s postmen to collect authentic primary data for rural India?s new consumer price index (CPI).

The government is also keen to introduce the Collection of Statistics Bill , 2007 in the coming monsoon session of Parliament to ensure proper data collection from not only industries, trade and commercial establishments but even individuals and households.

The Bill that would replace the legislation of the Collection of Statistics Act, 1953 had been introduced in the Rajya Sabha and was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, minister of state for statistics and programme implementation G K Vasan said on Tuesday at the first ever meeting of states? statistical ministers.

The Parliamentary Committee had suggested that the Bill should have provisions for simple imprisonment as per the Indian Penal Code in case someone wilfully provided false information to the government or any public sector authority or if an employee working under the Act failed to keep inviolate the secrecy of the information.

The House panel also said that the existing provision of mere monetary penalty of Rs 1,000 for individuals and Rs 5,000 for companies was too meagre to deter anyone from making false statements.

The Centre has been working towards shifting to just two indices?consumer price index?urban ( CPI -U) and CPI-Rural ( CPI -R) from a multitude of indices. But an acute shortage of human resources, particularly to collect data from the over 1000 villages for the CPI has delayed the initiative.

?A key challenge with compiling the CPI is the continuity of manpower. As the products are tightly defined, you cannot have people who collect the data, changing all the time,? the chief statistician of India Pronab Sen pointed out.

Considering that it is also important to ensure that the personnel collecting the data don?t change frequently, Sen who is also Secretary, ministry of statistics and programme implementation, thinks postmen could fit the bill. To this end, he has written to the secretary, department of posts to consider allowing the use of postmen for collection of data in the villages for the specific items under the CPI basket.

There are over 50,000 postmen working with the department of posts. The statistics department would arrange for some kind of stipend for those postmen who would be engaged in the data collection for CPI-rural. ?We will give them (postman) a short snap training for about 2-3 days regarding the shops that they have to visit and the rates they have to collect for the specific items. It is a simple job,? Sen said.

Given the diversity of the country, particularly in the rural areas, the data has a wide variety in it which is why the ministry takes time to compile it. CPI has a variety of products which is representative of the state along with the consumption pattern of the state. The CPI is drawn from the state level and then aggregated.

Currently, the country has a multitude of different indices for industrial workers, rural workers, urban non-manual employees and agricultural workers.

Once these two indices are up and running, the CPI could even replace the present measure for inflation ? wholesale price index (WPI) as experts feel that it does not accurately reflect the prices that hit the consumers.

?The data collection process for CPI urban is already underway. Once we have enough data we will start releasing them, may be some time in the next financial year,? Sen said. The states have agreed to conduct the market surveys for NSSO and NSSO would pay them for this.