RBI Governor welcomes base year revision for GDP, CPI, and IIP

RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra has welcomed the government's move to revise the base year for key economic indicators like GDP, CPI, and IIP, stating it will help reflect economic changes and support better-calibrated monetary policy.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra, has welcomed National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's (MoSPI) base year revision of key economic indicators -- Consumer Price Index (CPI), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Index of Industrial Production (IIP), noting it will reflect changing consumption patterns, economic structures, and support better-calibrated monetary policy and growth.

The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation is revising the base year of key macroeconomic indicators. Indicators such as CPI, GDP, and IIP play a vital role in policymaking in RBI, the central bank governor said in a video message posted on X by the MoSPI.

Broader Scope of Revision

"This exercise is not merely a revision in the base year, but it also covers revisions in methods, weights, item baskets, data sources and computation techniques," the RBI Governor said.

Significance for RBI's Policymaking

For RBI, he said CPI is especially important for monetary policy purposes because it anchors the flexible inflation-targeting framework. "Updating the base year of CPI will ensure that the index reflects the consumption patterns and household spending more accurately as they have obviously changed over a period of time," Malhotra said.

Similarly, GDP figures are very important to the RBI. "The GDP needs to capture the evolving structure of the Indian economy, which has again transformed and changed, with the rising role of services, digital activities, and various new business models," he said.

The IIP base revision, he said, will also help RBI improve assessments of underlying momentum in the real economy.

"Overall, I would like to congratulate the MOSPI. It is a very timely and a very welcome step. Strengthening our statistical systems, it will facilitate more calibrated policies. It will help us sustain both price stability and economic growth. I wish all the very best to the MOSPI and all the stakeholders in this endeavour," his video message concluded.

New Release Schedule and Rationale

According to MoSPI, the new GDP series with base year 2022-23 will be released on February 27, 2026. The new CPI series with base year 2024 will be released on February 12, 2026. The new IIP series with Base Year 2022-23 will be released on May 28, 2026.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had, in late 2025, graded India at 'C' on national accounts, essentially citing outdated data. The base year was perceived to be outdated by the IMF.

The government is undertaking a revision of the base year for national accounts to better reflect structural changes in the economy, evolving consumption patterns, and the rapid expansion of the digital economy over the past decade, Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), had said earlier.

"Over the past 10 years, the structure of the economy has changed. The type of products that are consumed by people has changed, and the digital economy has grown much bigger," Garg had said. (ANI)

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