The labour ministry has revised the base year of the Consumer Price Index-Industrial Workers (CPI-IW)
from 2001 to 2016, giving more weight to spending on housing, education and health in inflation index
calculation.
The revision in base year will reflect changing consumption pattern of the working-class population over the years.
Following the change in base year, the index will give 39% weight to food and beverage consumption of workers
now as against 46.2% earlier. In contrast, spending on housing will get almost 17% weight as against 15.2%
earlier.
Among consumption categories, a segment comprising spending on heads like education, health and transport by
workers has been given a sizable jump in weight from 23% earlier to 30% now.
