P rices do not remain constant as they tend to change due to various economic, social and political factors. Price stability is essential for sustaining the momentum of growth and ensuring proper distribution of the benefits of development. Thus, monitoring price change is extremely important as they have direct bearing on economic policy and planning. Government conducts regular and periodic checks on the movement of prices of essential commodities, since a change in the price level impacts the pattern of consumption of the consumer. Price index numbers are one of the important economic tools that help in monitoring and analysing the change in price levels. Price Index measures relative change in the price levels of commodities or services in a region during a given period of time. Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI), are the two key important indices which measure the prices and monitor inflation at wholesale and retail level respectively.

PRICE STATISTICS IN RAJASTHAN

The price situation in the state is influenced by the price behaviour at the national level. The fluctuation in the Prices is depicted by wholesale price and consumer price indices. The Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES) has been collecting the wholesale and retail prices of the commodities regularly since 1957 from selected centres across the State on a weekly basis. Also the prices of livestock products, by-products, rates for the construction material used in buildings & labour wages are collected from all districts of the state. On the basis of wholesale prices, monthly wholesale price indices are being prepared regularly. The Consumer Price Indices for industrial workers (base year 2016=100) are prepared and released by the Labour Bureau, Shimla for Jaipur, Alwar and Bhilwara centres of the State from September, 2020 . The DES also prepares Building Construction Cost Index for Jaipur Centre.

Wholesale Price Index (WPI)

Wholesale Price Index (WPI) of Rajasthan (Base Year 1999-2000=100)

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is the only general index capturing price movements in a comprehensive way and is an indicator of movement in prices of commodities in all trades and transactions. Price index numbers are used for several purposes. The primary use of the state level WPI is in the computation of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) as an indicator. These are used to measure the rate of inflation in the economy. They are also useful in monitoring changes in relative prices of different groups of commodities like primary articles, agricultural commodities, raw material prices, prices of industrial products, food prices and other non-food item prices. Price index numbers at state level help in comparing price changes at the state level vis-à-vis at the national and global level. These are used as an indicator for computation of several other economic parameters too. Wholesale Price Index (WPI - Base Year 1999-2000=100) serves as an important determinant in the formulation of trade, fiscal, monetary and other economic policies by the government. It is also widely used by the banks, industries and business circles. It is released on monthly basis.
The wholesale prices of selected agricultural, minerals, fuel, power, light & lubricants and manufactured commodities are collected on every Friday in 76 selected centers for 154 items. It covers 154 commodities, of which 75 are from 'Primary Articles' group, 69 from Manufactured Products' group and 10 from 'Fuel and Power' group. The weight assigned to the 'Primary Articles' group is 33.894, to 'Manufactured Products' group is 49.853 and for the 'Fuel and Power' group, is 16.253.
District Statistical Offices and Krashi Upaj and Fruits & Vegitables Mandies Samiti, provide information on prices in respect of their commodities from corresponding market / centers. The Directorate uses these prices for compiling monthly index series of wholesale prices for Rajasthan on the basis of weights assigned to various commodities during the base year 1999-2000=100.

The weighted index is broadly classified in following 3 groups:-

i) Primary Articles,
ii) Fuel, power, light & lubricants, and
iii) Manufactured Products.

(i) INTRUDUCTION OF REVISED SERIES OF INDEX NUMBERS: REVISED BASE YEAR (1999-2000=100)

The Office of the Economics and Statistics Department, has introduced the revised series of the Index of Wholesale Prices (base 1999-2000=100) in replacing of the earlier WPI series (Base 1952-53=100) with effect from 1st January 2005, in Rajasthan.

An Advisory Committee was constituted by the Government of Rajasthan under the chairmanship of Dr. S. S. Acharya, (Former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Government of India) Director, Institute of Development Studies, Rajasthan, Jaipur, for revision of base year of Wholesale Prices Index in Rajasthan. The advisory committee was entrusted with the task of examining the issues relating to weighting diagram and several other aspects of the wholesale price index series. Based on the recommendations of the committee, the Government of Rajasthan has decided to replace the existing series of Index Numbers of Wholesale Prices (Base: 1952-53) with a revised series having 1999-2000 as the base year.
The revised series 1999-2000 has 154 items for which there are 384 QUOTATIONS . The average number of price QUOTATIONS per item works out to 2.49 for the revised series and will have a substantially up dated. All items having large transaction in the State economy have been included in the revised series to the extent possible. Thus, the revised series will have a substantially updated and representative basket of commodities as well as variety/ grades and market.

The coverage of the new series has been rationalized by incorporating important new items, dropping unimportant items and amalgamating items with those to which they are akin.

108 distinctly new items have been added in the revised series. A few items of the current series have been amalgamated because of their similarity in characteristics and for making their description more purposeful. Only eleven items from the 1952-53 series have been dropped due to their insignificant contribution in terms of their relative value of production in the economy.

A comparison of the number of items and price quotations (at the level of major groups) in the existing as well as in the revised base series is presented in Table 1.

Table 1

Comparison of the number of items and price quotations (Major Groups)

S. No.	Description	Number of Items in series		Number of Quotations in series
		1999-2000	1952-53	1999-2000	1952-53
	All Commodities	154	59	384	102
i	Primary Articles	75	15	187	34
	Raw Materials		9		21
ii	Fuel, Power Light & Lubricants	10	5	15	6
iii	Manufactured Products	69	30	182	41

All the three major groups viz:, Primary Articles; Fuel, Power, Light & Lubricants; and Manufactured Products have expanded in respect of number of items in the revised series. Within Primary Articles, the group 'Food articles', 'Non-food articles' and 'Minerals' have recorded substantial increase in the revised series.

The composition of the series has been rationalised by incorporating newly emerging and important items, deletion of un-important items, amalgamation of less important items with similar ones and splitting of certain items into a number of items

ii) Weighting Diagram

The methodology adopted in the current series has also been followed for the proposed series. The weights of the items are based on the value of transactions, which consist of (a) value of estimated marketed surplus in the case of agricultural commodities, (b) value of products for sale in the case of non-agricultural products, and (c) total value of turnover for others. Weights have been assigned on the basis of the entire wholesale transactions in the economy. The value of transactions of non-selected commodities has been assigned to the selected items on a pro rata basis.

Within the agricultural sector, individual commodities have been assigned weights on the basis of the value of marketed surplus during the year 1999-2000. The revised series has utilised the estimated-marketed surplus ratios pertaining to the base year, a practice that was started from the present series as proposed by the Advisory Committee.

In the minerals group, the allocation of weights to individual commodities is based on the sale value of production during the year 1999-2000. In other case major groups, Manufactured Products and Fuel, Power, Light & Lubricants the weight have been assigned on the basis of sale values, which were obtained from concerned agencies/departments for the year 1999-2000. The weights of other miscellaneous manufactured items, which are dropped, have been distributed pro-rata among other groups within the major group.

A comparative picture of the weighting diagrams of the existing and the revised series, at the level of major groups, is presented in Table 2

Table 2

Weighting Diagram of the Revised and Previous series

	Description	1999-2000 Series	1952-53 Series
	All Commodities	100.00	100.00
i	Primary Articles	33.894	52.750
	Raw Materials		6.427
ii	Fuel, Power, Light & Lubricants	16.253	3.069
iii	Manufactured products	49.853	37.754

It may be observed from the above table that the weight of 'Primary Articles' has significantly declined while that of 'Fuel, Power, Light & Lubricants' and 'Manufactured Products' have gone up considerably in the revised series. This situation has arisen as a consequence of the relative decline, particularly, in 'food articles' and growth in 'non-food articles' in the major group of Primary Articles. The new weighting diagram is, thus, in conformity with the structural changes that have taken place in the economy since the introduction of the current series .

(iii) Comparison Between Revised Series and Old Series

Monthly/Annual rates of changes in WPI have been calculated both for the revised series and the existing series. These have been shown along with the indices in Table-3

The Advisory Committee has adopted the practice of using the average of monthly indices for the year 1999-2000 (i.e., annual average) with 1952-53 bases to estimate the linking factors of the old series for comparison with the new series. It is also noted that the linking factor has been used for All Commodities.

Comparison of the new series with the old series at the All Commodities. level depicts that the new series of indices start at a higher level than the old series, which relatively has highest annual rate of change (ARC) in the year 2001-02. Usually, the ARC during the years 1999-2000 to 2002-03 shows corresponding increasing trend. On the other hand monthly rates of changes is showing mixed trend.

Table-3

Comparison of New, Old series

	Annual Average Index Values		Annual Rate of Change
Year	1999-2000	1952-53	1999-2000	1952-53
1999-2000	100.00	100.00	-	-
2000-2001	104.39	103.94	4.39	3.94
2001-2002	111.05	105.51	6.38	1.51
2002-2003	115.85	110.16	4.32	4.41

(iv) Linking Factor

To maintain continuity in the index series data on Wholesale Price Index, there is a need for a linking factor so that the new series may be compared with the out going one. The linking of the two series is significant on two counts. Firstly, it provides a basis for determination of cost escalation, wage settlement etc. and secondly, it generates a long duration time series information which can be used for conducting certain analytical studies on the behavior of prices.

There are generally three different methods used for linking a new series with an old one. These are (1) arithmetic conversion method, (2) ratio method and (3) regression method.

Of the above three methods, the arithmetic conversion method is the simplest and operationally, the most convenient one. The Directorate of the Economic and Statistics has been using this method to link various series. The choice of linking method is however, left to be decided by the users.

Linking factors have been used at the 'All Commodities' level. The arithmetic conversion method is the simplest one. According to this method, the linking factor is the ratio of average of monthly WPI of the old series to the average of monthly WPI for the same period (generally the base period) of the new series. This comes to 24.4491.

(v) Methodology

It is calculated on the principle of weighted arithmetic mean according to the Laspeyre's formula, which has fixed base year weights operating through the entire life span of the series.

The index should be calculated on the principle of weighted arithmetic mean. The following formula currently being used should be used in the revised series also.

I = S (Ii x Wi) / S Wi

Where

I = Index Number of wholesale prices of a sub-group/group/major group/All commodities,

S = Represents the summation operation,

Wi = the weight assigned to the ith item/sub-group/group/ major group and

Ii = Index of the ith item/sub-group/group/major group.

Price relatives are calculated as the percentage ratios which the current prices bear to those prevailing in the base period, i.e. by dividing the current price by the base period price and multiplying the quotient by 100. The commodity index is arrived at as the simple arithmetic average of the price relatives of all the varieties included under that commodity. The indices for the sub-groups/groups/major groups/all commodities are, in turn worked out as the weighted arithmetic mean of the indices of the items/sub-group/groups/major groups falling under their respective heads.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI)

Now a days, much more attention is given to Consumer Price Index (CPI), earlier Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation remains in much focus. WPI series has a wider commodity basket with commodity weights reflecting the underlying economy-wide inflation better. The Governments however, prefer to target CPI rather than the WPI, because the CPI affects each and every consumer. To study the changes in the retail prices of a basket of selected groups consumed and services utilized by a selected group of the population, four different types of Consumers Price Indices are being constructed every month. They are Consumer Price Index for (a) Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) (b) Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) (c) Rural Labourers (CPI-RL) and (d) Rural and Urban (CPI-R&U). The first three indices are constructed and released by the Labour Bureau, Shimla and the fourth by the National Statistical Office (NSO), New Delhi.

Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW)

The Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) measures the temporal change in the retail prices of fixed basket of goods and services being consumed by an average working class family and thus, is an important indicator of the change in consumption level of average industrial worker in the country. The target group of CPI-IW is workers of factories, mining, plantations, motor-transport, docks, railways and electricity production and distribution. This Index mainly used for determination of Dearness Allowance (DA) for the employees in both the public and private sectors. At the national level, CPI (IW) for central series is constructed for 78 selected industrially developed centres across the country, with three of these centers based in Rajasthan (Jaipur, Ajmer &Bhilwara).

The Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers was released on the base year 2001=100 till August, 2020 and the Consumer Price Index are being released from September, 2020 on the base year 2016=100 , the Alwar Centre is included in place of Ajmer Centre in the state. The consumer price indices for industrial workers are prepared and released by Labour Bureau, Shimla.

Consumer Price Index for Agriculture Labourers (CPI-AL/RL)

The Consumer Price Index for the Agricultural Labourers & Rural Labourers is also prepared by the Labour Bureau, Shimla with 1986-87 as the base year.

General Consumer Price Index (Rural, Urban & Combined)

The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation releases General Consumer Price Indices (CPI) at base year 2012 for all India and States/UTs separately for Rural, Urban and Combined every month since January, 2015. The earlier series on Base 2010=100 was started w.e.f. january,2011.