Ministry conference discusses frequent household expenditure surveys

It will help in CPI base revision and updating other macroeconomic indicators, say economists

The country should hold frequent surveys on household consumption expenditure to ensure the latest information for base revision of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and other macroeconomic indicators, economists and forecasters suggested at a conference organised by the statistics ministry.

The conference, organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in Mumbai on Wednesday, was joined by more than 50 forecasters and economists of various organisations. It was attended by Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran; Ajay Seth, secretary in the department of economic affairs, Nilesh Shah, member of the economic advisory council to the Prime Minister, and economists Ganesh Kumar and Ila Patnaik.

“Of the major suggestions emerging [in the conference], frequent Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys may be conducted to ensure frequent base revision of Consumer Price Index and other macro-economic indicators,” said a statement by the statistics ministry on Wednesday

“[Besides] possibility of better coverage of services in the revised series of CPI may be explored. Employer-provided dwellings may be excluded from CPI to ensure consistency in the data. The methodology for compilation of Housing index may be re-visited. Requests for frequent such interactions, to understand the methodologies of data collection of education, health services and data for housing index, were also made,” it said.

Conference participants suggested giving emphasis on the spatial dimension of GDP in terms of dis-aggregations like urban /rural, district domestic product, along with having a uniform understanding of core inflation for which the statistics ministry may explore compilation of core inflation

It was suggested that the release time of indices may be changed to provide sufficient time for analysis by users on the same day.