India (Delhi)
Official title
Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers.
Scope
The index is computed monthly and covers industrial workers
families in Delhi.
Official base
1982 = 100.
Source of weights
The weights and selected items were derived from a household expenditure
survey conducted during one year in 1981-82 among 648 industrial workers
families of seven sectors namely factories, mines, plantations,
railways, public motor transport undertakings, electricity generating
and distributing establishments, ports and docks in 70 industrial
centres. The index relates to industrial workers' families in Delhi.
The weights were not adjusted to take into account price changes between
the survey period and the base period. The inclusion of items in the
index basket depends on the average expenditure reported by the working
class families compared to total consumption expenditure and the number
of families reporting expenditure. Items with negligible expenditure
reported are generally imputed to related items in the same sub-group.
Weights and composition
| Major groups
| Number of items
| Weights
| Approximate number of price quotations
|
| Food
| 61 | 50.71 | 524
|
| Tobacco, pan, supari, etc.
| 8 | 2.35 | 56
|
| Rent
| 1 | 14.02 | 21
|
| Fuel and light
| 6 | 5.61 | 39
|
| Clothing, footwear and bedding
| 15 | 12.53 | 31
|
| Miscellaneous
| 39 | 14.78 | 143
|
| Total
| 130 | 100.00 | 814
|
Household consumption expenditure
The imputed value was taken in the case of income in kind, home
ownership, gifts etc. For part payments, only payments made during the
reference month were taken into account. Second-hand
purchases and trade-in of used goods were excluded. Expenditure
on social insurance, pension funds, licence fees, insurance of
goods, direct taxes, life insurance, remittances etc. were treated
as non-consumption expenditure.
Method of data collection
Prices are collected by state government employees for the different
goods and services including electricity, gas, medical care,
education, transport and communication by personal visits to the
most popular markets and retail outlets and to the controlled
shops (fair price shops) and service establishments. The
frequency of price collection is weekly for price sensitive
items. Prices of items such as cinema tickets, furniture, utensils,
household appliances, transport, clothing and footwear, etc. are
collected once a month as their prices do not change
frequently. The prices of items such as house rent, school or college
fees and school or college books are collected once in six months. All
prices are collected on a fixed price collection day at the
same point of time. Net prices are used in the index. Free-market
and official prices (controlled prices) are taken by
combining them in the ratio of supplies of average requirements
through two sources. Black-market prices, hire-purchase, second-hand
purchase and import prices are not taken into account in the
index computation.
Housing
The costs of
rented, rent-free and self-owned dwellings, including taxes, minor
repairs and white-washing charges incurred by tenants, but
excluding charges such as water, electricity, sweeper etc., are
collected once every six months. The rent index is compiled using the
chain base method, in which rent movements are compared with the
last six month period and not with the base period, as this method
takes better care of the depreciation aspect of housing. New
houses are not included in the sample as it is felt that the relative
movement of rents in new houses does not differ from
that of old houses.
For owner-occupied houses, the rent for comparable
rented dwellings is obtained. If such houses are not available
on the market, the owned houses' index is taken to be the same as
that of rented houses.
Specification of varieties
Each item was given fixed specifications, including the variety,
quality, make, brand and units etc. Specifications were established
on the basis of local preference determined through market
enquiries.
Substitution, quality change, etc.
When the prescribed quality of an article is not available, a
substitute variety of equivalent or comparable quality is
selected. The old variety is brought back to the price schedule
if it reappears in the market. Adjustments are made for price
differences due to quality differences of the substitute. When
the substitute chosen differs in quality by as much as 100 per
cent (or when the difference is difficult to assess), the price
quotations for the new product are linked to those for the product
replaced.
Seasonal items
The weights of the vegetables and fruit sub-group are kept
constant in the food group but monthly varying weights were
calculated for various items depending on their availability.
The weights of items not available in a month are imputed to
related items.
Computation
The index is computed according to the Laspeyres formula as a
weighted arithmetic average with fixed base, using weights
corresponding to 1981-82.
Generally, a simple average of all prices reported in a month
is used for each item. If more than one variety is
priced for an item, a simple average of price relatives is
calculated for the item.
All centre indices are computed directly but the All-India
Index is computed as a weighted average of all the centre
indices, using centre weights based on the product of average
consumption expenditure per family and the number of families in
each centre in 1981-82.
Other information
In addition to consumer price indices for industrial workers, two other
series are published: Consumer Price Indices for Agricultural Labourers
and Consumer Price Indices for Urban Non-Manual Employees. The former
is computed by the Labour Bureau and published in its monthly Indian
Labour Journal
; the latter is being computed by the Central
Statistical Organisation, New Delhi and published in its
Monthly
Abstract of Statistics
(New Delhi).
Organisation and publication
Ministry of Labour, Labour Bureau: Indian Labour Journal
(Simla) (November 1988 and January 1989 issues for further
methodological information).
Idem: Indian Labour Year Book - Annual.
Idem: Pocket Book of Labour Statistics - Annual.
Idem: Indian Labour Statistics - Annual.