New Delhi, Jan 29 (PTI) The January retail inflation data will reflect price movements in airfares, e-commerce platforms and subscription rates of OTT channels like Amazon Prime, with the statistics ministry expanding constituents of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The new CPI series, which will also have the base year as 2024 instead of 2012, is being introduced with an aim to look at the key macroeconomic indicators more accurately and assess the broader consumption pattern of households in the country.

The first set of inflation data based on the revised base year will be released on February 12 for January, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said.

The basket of new consumer price index will comprise 358 items, representing the pace of price hike across sectors. In the existing series, prices are collected for 299 representational items.

The statistics ministry has released the report of the expert group on the comprehensive updation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The report has recommended the adoption of the latest Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP) 2018 framework up to the subclass level for classification of items, updation of CPI item basket and their corresponding weights using Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2023-24, and use of the latest technology for price data collection and compilation.

Other recommendations include the inclusion of administrative and online/e-commerce data, methodological improvements in index compilation, including the house rent index and more granular data dissemination.

In the existing CPI having base year of 2012, all data are collected from physical or brick-and-mortar shops.

To improve the quality of data, enhance the robustness of CPI and reduce burden on the data collector, price collection mechanisms for several items were explored by Price Statistics Division (PSD) in collaboration with State Regional Offices (ROs) of FOD, in CPI 2024.

Further, it was also noted that the share of expenditure by households, through online platforms, was 4 per cent in rural and 10.5 per cent in urban areas, the report said.

"In view of this, 12 online markets are added across the towns having more than 2.5 million population. All items of CPI basket are mapped to the most popular platform available in the town," it said.

Airfare will be collected from online/e-commerce platforms, and prices of online media service providers/streaming services form websites of major service providers (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Jio Hotstar, SonyLiv, YouTube Premium, and Zee5).

Airfare for the international direct routes has been incorporated into the price collection framework in CPI 2024.

The expert group report has also recommended that the price collection to be conducted with respect to advance ticket purchase for 21 days and 60 days for domestic and international travel, respectively.

In the case of gold and silver jewellery, in line with international practice, the expert group report recommended adopting the approach of defining standard jewellery items that are likely to be available consistently in the market, rather than attempting to price customised pieces.

Accordingly, prices of basic and simple gold and silver jewellery such as bangles, necklaces, and rings will be collected.

Further, employer-provided accommodations will be excluded from the CPI 2024 series, while electricity charges will be captured for four slabs (100, 200, 300 and 400 units).

After detailed discussions and brainstorming sessions, the report said it was decided not to include free social transfers for any item in CPI.

This is in accordance with the international guidelines and basic principles of the consumer price index -- CPI should include only those items for which expenditure is being made by households.

"The release of this report aims to facilitate the users of CPI with a better understanding and assimilation of the CPI 2024 series before its release on 12th February 2026. The first release will provide indices from January 2025 onwards and inflation data for January 2026," the ministry said.

The all-India level back series for the rural, urban, and combined sectors, from January 2013 onwards, will also be released on February 12, 2026.

In the existing CPI series, for all items, the prices are collected from 1,181 rural markets and 1,114 urban markets across 310 towns. At the All-India level, prices are collected for 299 items. The number of items in the rural and urban sectors is 288 and 281, respectively.

In CPI 2024, the price data will be collected from 1,465 rural markets and 1,395 urban markets across 434 towns.

The total number of weighted items in the new basket will be 358. Among them, the number of items under goods category will increase from 259 to 314 and those under services from 40 to 50.

Besides, 12 online markets have also beeen added across 12 towns to capture price variations of the items on the e-commerce/online platforms. PTI NKD HVA