A new Consumer Price Index series based on 2023–24 consumption data to better reflect inflation trends, real incomes, and evolving consumption patterns.
Chief Economic Advisor Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday said the revision of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) base year to 2024 will significantly enhance the quality of monetary and fiscal policy decision-making in India.
Speaking at an event to launch the new CPI series, Nageswaran said the updated index provides policymakers with a more current and accurate basis for assessing real incomes, consumption trends, and purchasing power.
“It is an important development because it will align us with the best practices that are possible in the world, and we may even be going one step ahead of others in the way we will be collating, compiling, and presenting key macroeconomic statistics and output and prices going forward,” he said.
The new CPI series shifts the base year from 2012 to 2024 and draws on data from the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2023–24. The revision aims to ensure that the index better represents current household consumption patterns, price structures, and the evolving nature of the Indian economy, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
Nageswaran noted that over the past decade, India’s economy has undergone structural changes in consumption behaviour, market dynamics, urbanisation and the expansion of services and digitalisation. The revised series, he said, will help better distinguish urban and rural inflation dynamics at both the state and subcategory levels.
He added that improved measurement could reduce inflation volatility and enable policymakers—particularly the Reserve Bank of India—to focus more on aggregate demand pressures rather than supply-induced price shocks.
Data released alongside the new series showed that year-on-year inflation based on the All India CPI stood at 2.75 per cent in January 2026 compared to January 2025 under the new 2024 base year.
The government is also revising the base year for other key macroeconomic indicators, including GDP and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), as part of efforts to modernise India’s statistical framework.
The update comes months after the International Monetary Fund flagged concerns over outdated base years in India’s national accounts data. Policymakers say the revised series will strengthen data credibility and support better-calibrated economic policy going forward.
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