Parliamentary Panel asks WPI base year revision group to publish quarterly progress report

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has asked the Working Group (WG) constituted by the government for base year revision of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) to publish quarterly progress reports to ensure transparency and accountability in base revision exercise. The Working Group should hold regular consultations with private sector experts, trade bodies such as the CII, FICCI and economists to make the WPI methodology more robust & industry relevant, the committee said.

The Union Government had constituted the WPI base year revision Working Group (WG) under the Chairmanship of Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand in December 2024. The first meeting of the WG which took place on January 31, 2025 constituted five Sub-Groups on specific areas - Agriculture sector, Minerals (Coal, Petroleum & Natural Gas and other minerals) and Electricity, Manufacturing sector, Services sector and Analytical and Dissemination issues – for focused deliberations to finalise the methodology, basket of items, price quotations and weight for WPI/PPI 2022-23. The Sub-Group members include experts and representatives from ministries and departments.

The WG is required to submit its report to the government within 18 months since its constitution.

The parliamentary panel had welcomed the government’s attempt to revise the methodology for the new series of Wholesale Price Index/Produces Price Index, to make the index more accurate with the change in base year to 2022-23. However, the committee wanted the working Group to complete its task in time bound manner to allow appropriate policy changes.

The Working Group for base revision of the current series of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) from base 2011-12 to 2022-23 was asked to suggest the commodity basket of WPI and PPI with base year 2022-23 in the light of structural changes in the economy. The Terms of Reference also included a review of the existing system of price collection and suggest changes for improvement and decide on the computational methodology to be adopted for WPI / PPI.

The WG was also asked to examine the methodology for compilation of PPI approved by Technical Advisory Committee on Statistics of Prices & Cost of Living and suggest further improvement in compilation and presentation and recommend roadmap for switch over from WPI to PPI.