Government Data Roundup: Status of Government Debt, CPI, WPI, IIP are among the data released recently
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 23, 2022
Starting today, we are launching this new fortnightly series called the ‘Government Data Roundup’.  This fortnightly roundup brings you a compilation of the data released by the government during those two weeks with information about the type of the data, the sector to which the data relates, the frequency of release, and a brief about the data. Here is the first edition.
‘What gets measured, gets managed’. This quote highlights the importance of data collection for bringing any sort of change. Data is an important part of this new-age digital society.
The Government is the single largest source of data, both in the public as well as private sectors. It periodically publishes various data in the form of reports, surveys, and indices. Most often, these publications either go unnoticed or get minimal attention. As a result, many tend to be clueless about the latest happenings in the country. To better equip people with information about the government data, this new fortnightly roundup brings you a compilation of the data released by the government. Information about the type of the data, the sector to which the data relates, the frequency of release, the agency responsible for the publication, and the source link of the data is provided in this roundup.
Information about each data release is divided into three sections:
The sectoral division is not entirely rigid and depends on the type of data released. However, the overarching objective is to provide users with comprehensive information about each source.
In the brief about the data, information about the objective behind the publication of such data is provided. Additionally, insights about the data sources, the method of data collection, and things to be mindful of are also mentioned. In the next section, i.e., key highlights, and important statistics regarding the data are presented. This section provides the takeaways from the data released. The final section deals with how the released data is significant and the ways in which it could impact us, the people. Not all data could be directly relevant to the people, but every piece of data has some significance for the larger public. This roundup strives to add value to each data release from that perspective.
This edition of the Government data roundup consists of reports about the Government debt, the National Time Release Study, the State energy and climate index, RBI’s forward-looking surveys, index of industrial production, Consumer price index, and wholesale price index.
Brief about the report/data:
This report presents a detailed picture of the country’s overall debt position. It is a go-to document to find all the related information about Government’s debt. Public debt is categorized into internal and external debt. Internal debt is further classified into marketable and non-marketable debt.
This report also consists of a debt management strategy (DMS), whose objective is to ensure that the financing of debt is made at the least possible cost, keeping in mind the degree of risk associated.
Key Highlights:
What Government debt could mean to you:
Brief about the report:
This report is the first of its kind that tracks the efforts made by the governments in the climate and energy sector. The report is divided into three thematic parts each dealing with distinct aspects of the sector. The first part deals with the objective and the current energy scenario in the country. The second part deals with the methodology aspects and the ranking of states/UTs based on the scores in the index. The last part looks at the key learnings and the recommendations for the future.
It has 27 indicators under 6 parameters – DISCOM’s performance (40%), Clean Energy Initiatives (15%), Access, Affordability, and Reliability of Energy (15%), Environmental Sustainability (12%), New Initiatives (12%) and Energy Efficiency (6%). The percentage in the parentheses indicates weightage out of 100%.
Key Highlights:
Significance:
Brief about the study:
Time Release Study is a performance measurement tool, as recommended by the World Trade Organization (WTO), to gauge the process of cargo clearance of international trade. It measures the average cargo release time – the total time taken from the cargo arrival till the release for import or export.
The study looked at 15 distinct types of custom formations – seaports, inland container depots (ICDs), air cargo complexes (ACC), and integrated check posts (ICPs).  The study is conducted to review progress in achieving the targets of the National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP).
Key highlights:
Significance:
Brief about the survey:
The consumer confidence survey (CCS) is an exercise to measure the current perceptions with respect to the previous year while also measuring the expectations for one year ahead on general economic conditions like spending, employment scenario, the economic situation in general, and price situation, etc. The data is collected from households in the major cities of India. Factly’s explainer on the ‘Consumer Confidence Survey’ can be read here.
Key Highlights:
Significance of Survey:
Brief about the survey:
The Services and Infrastructure outlook survey portrays the expectations of Indian companies in the service and infrastructure sectors based on parameters relating to price situation, demand conditions, employment conditions, and similar other parameters. Around 574 companies were asked to provide their assessment for the fourth quarter Q4 of 2021-22 and expectations from Q1 of 2022-23.
Key Highlights:
Brief about the index:
CPI measures the changes in the price level of goods and services that are consumed in a household. It has a fixed basket of goods and services that includes Food and Beverages; Pan, tobacco, and intoxicants; clothing and footwear; housing; fuel and light, and miscellaneous. Each of these categories has weights assigned to them. Along with this, the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) is also measured, which is the change in prices of food products consumed by the population. The National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme implementation (MoSPI) is responsible for the release of the data. The base year had been changed from 2010 to 2012 from 2015 onwards and the data is collected from 1181 village markets and 1114 urban markets across the country. It is a Laspeyre’s index, which is calculated as CPI = (Total cost of a fixed basket of goods and services in a particular period*100)/ (Total cost of a fixed basket of goods & services in base period)
Key Highlights:
Significance of the report:
Brief about the index:
It is an average change in the prices of wholesale commodities. The index basket comprises three categories – Primary Articles (117 items, 22.62% of total weight), fuel and power (16 items, 13.15% of total weight) and manufactured products (564 items, 64.23% of total weight). The weights accorded to each category are based on the value of production adjusted for net imports. The base year for this index is 2011-12. It is important to note that WPI does not include services. It focuses on the prices of goods that are traded between the organizations and not the goods brought by the consumers. WPI is also known as the ‘headline inflation rate’ in India.
Key Highlights:
Significance of the report:
Brief about the report:
This index measures the changes in the level of industrial production in a given economy. It indicates the mood of the industrial activity in the country. The base year for this index is 2011-12, and it is assigned a value of 100. While the annual survey of industries gives a complete and detailed picture of the industrial activity, this index gives a short-term analysis of the industrial performance. The data for this index is sourced from 14 different agencies like the Indian Bureau of Mines, coffee board, tea board, central electricity authority, and so on.
For the purpose of this index, industrial production is categorized into three sectors – Mining (14.2%), Manufacturing (75.5%), and Electricity (10.3%). The values in the brackets denote their relative weights. Alternatively, there is also a ‘use-based’ classification of goods – primary goods (34.05%), capital goods (8.22%), intermediate goods (17.22%), infrastructure goods (12.34%), consumer durables (12.84%), and consumer non-durables (15.33%).
Key highlights:
Significance: