Why in News ?
The Consumer Price Index For Industrial Workers for the month of August, 2020 is being released in this press release. Labour Bureau, an attached office of the M/o Labour & Employment, has been compiling Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers.
About Consumer Price Index For Industrial Workers
- It is designed to measure a change over time in prices of a given basket of goods and services consumed by a defined population.
- The basis of the retail prices of selected items collected from 289 markets spread over 78 industrially important centres in the country.
- The index is compiled for 78 centres and All-India and is released on the last working day of succeeding month.
- Retail inflation measured in terms of the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) is the benchmark for working out dearness allowance for central government employees and dearness relief for pensioners.
About recent Index
- The All-India CPI-IW for August, 2020 increased by 2 points and stood at 338.
- The indices of 31 centres are above All-India Index and 47 centres’ indices are below national average.
- Year-on-year inflation based on all-items stood at 5.63 per cent for August, 2020 as compared to 5.33 per cent for the previous month and 6.31 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.
- Similarly, Food inflation stood at 6.67 per cent against 6.38 per cent of the previous month and 5.10 per cent during the corresponding month a year ago.
- The maximum upward pressure in current index came from Food group, contributing (+) 1.14 percentage points.
- Implications
- The increase in CPI-IW will have a positive effect on wages/salaries of industrial workers engaged in organized sector besides Government employees and pensioners.
- The rise in annual inflation is mainly due to rise in prices of items like Rice, Potato, Brinjal, Onion, etc.
Source : PIB
Topic
GS III : Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment
Current Affairs Compilation : 1 October 2020