Need to review price index monitoring: FM

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said that there is an urgent need to review the present system of monitoring wholesale and retail prices of the essential commodities.

Wholesale price index is the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods, fluctuations in which are used to calculate inflation.

Mukherjee said that he hoped Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on inflation would consider and deliberate on this issue and come out with concrete implementable suggestions.

The Finance Minister said that there is also a need to improve the manner in which the available information is put to use in designing and formulating the required policy responses.

He was speaking at the first meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on inflation on Tuesday.

The IMG, setup by Prime Minister Minister Manmohan Singh, and chaired by the Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. Kaushik Basu, has been asked to ?review the inflation situation and suggest corrective measures.?

India?s headline inflation, came down to 8.23 percent according to figures released on Monday, after weeks of upward trends driven by stiff pressure from a bold food inflation.