The government will launch a new series of wholesale price index (WPI) with 2004-05 as base from Tuesday. At present, 1993-94 is used as base year to calculate WPI. The new series of WPI will have 676 items as against 435 items in the previous series. Consumer items widely used by the middle class like ice-cream, mineral water, flowers, microwave oven, washing machine, gold and silver will be reflected in the new series of WPI. Readymade food, computer stationery, refrigerators, dish antenna, VCD, petroleum products and computers will also be part of the new series.
Under primary article group of the new WPI, there will be 102 items against the existing 98, while fuel and power category will remain at 19. In the new series, there will be 555 items of manufactured products compared to 318 items at present. At the same time, weight of manufactured products will go up to 64.97% compared to 63.75%, while that of primary articles group, including food, will come down to 20.12%, against 22.02% at present. The new series would accompany inflation numbers with old base year (1993-94) as well for comparison, the official added. Depending on the relevance of articles in the present economic condition, about 200 items have been dropped from the new series. Items like typewriters, video cassette recorders (VCRs), radio etc will not find place in the new series.
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