The government has set up a committee for the base year revision of various price indices such as consumer, wholesale, retail, and producers, along with suggesting methods of appropriate weighting for these indices.
The terms of reference of the reconstituted 22-member Technical Advisory Committee on Statistics of Prices and Cost of Living, led by the director general of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), also include examining improvement and standardisation of the concepts and definitions of price collection and compilation of the price indices.
The committee will have a tenure of two years with representation from NITI Aayog, the Agricultural Ministry, the Labour Ministry, the Commerce Ministry, the Consumer Affairs Ministry, economists, and representatives from the state governments.
Besides, the panel is also slated to examine schemes prepared by the central and state governments for the construction of the price indices.
According to the gazette notification by the ministry, the committee will also review organisational arrangements and the machinery for price collection with a view to rationalise and develop an integrated system of collection, compilation, and dissemination of price statistics.
The government is in the process of aligning the base year of all macro-economic indicators. Earlier last month, MoSPI also set up a 26-member Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) to decide the base year for gross domestic product (GDP) under the chairmanship of Professor Biswanath Goldar. The panel will also take a call on the alignment of the GDP base year with other indices like the wholesale price index, consumer price index, and index of industrial production.
First Published: Jul 19 2024 | 8:48 PM IST
