The Government of India has decided that now the data will be taken directly from e-commerce and digital platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, ZOMATO, Netflix and Jio Hotstar to calculate retail inflation.
why must?
Till now the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was mostly based on offline shops and traditional consumption.
But now the online expenses of Indians are increasing very fast. In 2024, 27 crore people were shopping online and this figure will grow at a rate of 22% every year.
For this reason, the Ministry wants online prices to also be included in the calculation of inflation so that the data is more accurate and timely.
What changes will happen?
Prices of e-commerce websites from 12 big cities are being taken through ‘scraping’ (collecting data in automatic way).
Companies have also been asked to share average weekly prices directly.
The new CPI series will be launched early next year, including the prices of airfare and online streaming (eg Netflix, Jio Hotstar).
Household Consumption Survey has also revealed that now people are doing less part of their budget on other things (services, digital expenses).
Other statistical reforms:
The new GDP series will come soon after considering the Aadhaar year 2022-23.
The sample of the employment survey has been almost doubled by 45,000 so that the monthly figures are more reliable.
The government is also bringing a new index of services production, which will measure the progress of the service sector every quarter.