Govt to bring out inflation index for 10 services

The government will come out with a Producers Price Index (PPI) next month for 10 services, including telecom and railways on experimental basis, a government official said on Tuesday.

The move will help track inflation in these services, which will also include ports, postal, insurance, banking, transportation and air travel.

“Services PPI will be released next month,” the official said.

Two major indices are used currently for tracking price movement - Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI).

While the WPI measures price movement of goods in wholesale markets, the CPI tracks inflation at retail level and also includes certain services.

While the incidence of taxes are accounted for in WPI and CPI, the PPI would reflect the cost at producers point sans taxes.

PPI measures the average change in the price a producer receives for his goods/services sold in the domestic market/exports.

In case of railways, price movement would be tracked for freight tariff and passenger fares. On the other hand, the index of banking would include direct services and fees.

The PPI for services assumes significance the sector contributes about 60%in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).