The statistics ministry may look at conducting the Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) more regularly to ensure frequent base revision of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and other macro-economic indicators, several economists recommended to the ministry on Tuesday.
As per sources, the statistics ministry received suggestions of conducting the HCES on an annual basis, so that the CPI can reflect rapidly changing consumption patterns.
The ministry just concluded the HCES for 2023-24, as it aims to update the base year of CPI by 2026. An official source earlier told FE that the results of the 2023-24 survey are largely similar to that of 2022-23, and thus the new CPI series would be computed based on the latter’s results.
Economists also suggested the ministry make attempts to reduce discrepancy in estimation of GDP, reduce the lag for GDP data release, provide disaggregated data (on urban, rural and district levels), and change the release time of these indices to provide sufficient time for analysis by the users on the same day. Currently, the CPI, Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and GDP data are released at 5:30PM.
Further suggestions included possibility of better coverage of services in the revised series of CPI, exploring compilation of core inflation on a monthly basis, and revisiting the methodology of compiling housing index.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) organised an interaction with economists in Mumbai. The interaction was attended by Ajay Seth, secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; V Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor; Nilesh Shah, member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister; and economists–which included Ganesh Kumar, member, National Statistical Commission, Ila Patnaik, former Principal Economic Advisor among others.