A new, more comprehensive version of the wholesale price index (WPI) series could be brought into use by October this year. According to a senior official in the department of industrial promotion and policy (DIPP), the report of the working group chaired by Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen on revising the constitution of the wholesale price index (WPI) is likely to be implemented by end of October.

"We have invited suggestions from the Planning Commission, the finance ministry and the statistics ministry and trial runs are already being done," the DIPP official told The Indian Express. The WPI is the primary index used for measuring headline inflation in India.

The report, which was submitted in May this year, had made some important recommendations about revamping the WPI and making it a more wide-ranging index. These included expanding the basket of commodities covered under the WPI to include 1224 items up from the earlier figure of 435 items, updating the base year from 1993-94 to 2004-05 and releasing inflation data on a monthly basis as against the current system of releasing it on a weekly basis.