India to introduce new GDP, CPI series by February 2026
India will introduce a new series of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) by February 2026, Saurabh Garg, Secretary of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), announced on Friday. He was speaking at an event organized by Ashoka University's Centre for Economic Data and Analysis. The government is reportedly planning to launch these revised GDP estimates in the last quarter of FY26.
New GDP series to use 2022-23 as base year
The new GDP series will take the fiscal year 2022-23 as its base, instead of the current series which takes 2011-12. This comes after plans to revise the base were shelved over concerns regarding data quality from the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) of 2017-18. The revised CPI series is also expected to be released in February 2026, coinciding with the new GDP series.
Government conducts 2 HCES surveys for data robustness
The first iteration of the HCES for 2022-23 was published earlier this year. A second iteration is scheduled to be released in December. The government decided to conduct two surveys as part of its strategy to ensure data robustness. Apart from these surveys, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is also conducting a market survey to identify shops and commodities for data collection purposes.
