SPI likely to be delayed as govt plays catch-up

The govt has formed two expert committees to track and collate data on services production and services prices

The much-awaited plan to introduce a Services Price Index (SPI), which will track services sectors price movements in tandem with goods inflation, is likely to be delayed again even as the government has started working towards the objective by collating relevant data in terms of prices as well as production.

In an effort to organise the services sector data, the government has formed two expert committees to track and collate data on services production and services prices, one each under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in the ministry of commerce and industry, and the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

"It is not easy to bring out a price index for the services sector. Not all countries can do it. But we have started working on it. Once these committees collate the data, both will be combined and forwarded to the National Statistical Commission (NSC). After properly analysing it, we will start generating the data. But all this will take time," said Pronab Sen, chairman, NSC.

The plan is to initially bring out a robust SPI that will track the inflationary movements in terms of cost of services of some of the key sectors such as banking, health, aviation and telecom sectors to be inducted into the inflation indices. Post this exercise, SPI will be integrated with the WPI.