Government plans to use online, e-commerce data in new CPI series
In a bid enhance accuracy, reliability and overall quality of the consumer price index (CPI), the government plans to include online sources as well as e-commerce platforms to compute retail inflation. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is working on changing the base years for computing CPI, Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The new series of CPI (consumer price index-based inflation) with base year (2024=100) data is scheduled to be released on February 12, 2026. The data on National Accounts with financial year 2022-23 as base year is scheduled to be released on February 27, 2026, while the new series of IIP data with base year 2022-23 will be released on May 28. MoSPI organised a pre-release consultative workshop on base revision of CPI, GDP and IIP.
Regarding the inclusion of new data sources in the CPI, MoSPI said in addition to the data collected from physical outlets as being done in the current series, prices would also be obtained from e-commerce platforms in 12 selected cities with a population of more than 25 lakh. Moreover, it stated efforts will also be made to procure administrative data in coordination with railways for rail fares, petroleum ministry for fuel prices, and postal department for postal tariffs. For airfares, telecom services, and OTT platforms, price data is proposed to be compiled from online sources using web-based methods.
The adoption of these alternative and digital data sources is expected to significantly improve the representativeness, reliability, accuracy and overall quality of the CPI. MoSPI is expanding coverage across both urban and rural markets and is also incorporating e-commerce price data and other digital sources to better capture changing consumption patterns. GDP base year revision will also help include additional data sources and alignment of compilation process with methodological improvements, standards and classifications.
