Consumer Price Index for industrial workers released

The Directorate of Economics and Statistics released the Consumer Price Index numbers for Industrial Workers - CPI(IW) for January 2006, here on Thursday.

The CPI(IW) is primarily used to regulate the dearness allowance of government employees and workers in the industrial sectors. It is also used in the fixation and revision of minimum wages in scheduled employment besides measuring the inflation of prices.

Announcing this to mediapersons, V Saroja Rama Rao, director, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, said, "Andhra Pradesh is the first state in the country to release CPI (IW) that was prepared on the lines of CPI(IW) compiled by Labour Bureau, Shimla."

The new series has got approval from the Andhra Pradesh government, Saroja said. The series takes 2001 as the base year and replaces the earlier series with 1982 as the base year.

Using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey 1999-2000 (done after a gap of about 20 years) conducted across 12 centres in Andhra Pradesh, the directorate prepared a weighting diagram based on average monthly family expenditure to arrive at the latest consumption pattern of the working class.

The weighting diagram has been prepared based on six categories: food, pan-supari-tobacco-intoxicants, fuel-light, housing, clothing-bedding-foot wear and miscellaneous. "We conducted a survey across 216 families in each centre," Saroja said.

Six of these centres "� Hyderabad, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Warangal, Godavarikhani "� were chosen by Labour Bureau as part of an all-India series of 78 centres.

The remaining centres, Vizainagaram-Chittivalasa, Kakinada-Rajahmundry, Jaggaiahpeta-Miryalaguda, Tirupati-Renigunta, Kothagudem-Palwancha, Nizamabad-Bodhan were selected by the directorate in accordance with working class population.