Montek pitches for monthly release of inflation data

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today pitched for monthly release of inflation data as it is more sensible than the current practice of coming out with weekly figures.

"We have been arguing for the past one year to get rate of monthly inflation. You know weekly is just not sensible," Ahluwalia told reporters here.

No where in the world there is weekly release of inflation data, he added.

Earlier Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said, information on weekly prices of manufactured products is highly meagre.

"In the absence of legal backing for a dedicated data collection system, the data is received on a voluntary basis from Government Ministries and attached offices, commodity boards, oil companies, individual industrial units, leading manufacturers, business houses, chambers of commerce and trade associations," Mukherjee had said.

Asked when could one expect the monthly release, he said, "They (government) have been working on it. May be it will come out actually I mean from the professional point of view this will be done, and obviously timing of it is always a matter of some concern because people always think that you are making the change for motivated reason."

The government is planning to introduce the new base year for calculation of wholesale price index series. The WPI series is being upgraded with base year 2004-05 in lieu of the existing one with base year 1993-94.