Inter-ministerial consultations are progressing on revising the wholesale price index (WPI) base year from 2011-12 to 2017-18, a top government official has said.

Revising base year to 2017- 18 for computation of wholesale inflation would help in presenting a more realistic picture of the price situation in the country.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in June last year issued a draft technical report of a working group, which suggests revising the base year of WPI and addition of about 480 new items such as medicinal plants, pen drive, lifts, gymnasium equipment and certain motorcycle engines in the new series.

The draft report was placed in public domain and its feedbacks were considered before the finalisation of the report.

“The working group submitted its report in June. Now inter-ministerial consultation is in progress,” DPIIT secretary Anurag Jain said.

In the case of agriculture commodities, new items such as medicinal plants like isabgol, aloe vera and menthol; fennel seed and methi seed, mushroom and watermelon were proposed to be added in the new price series subject to the availability of data.

At present, the index has a total of 697 items, including primary articles (117), fuel and power (16), and manufactured products (564).

In the new series, a total of 1,176 items in these three categories have been proposed — primary articles (131), fuel and power (19), and manufactured products (1,026).

According to the draft report, in the current series of WPI, the electricity index is computed based on the price quotations of power generating stations only from hydro and thermal power stations.

It is now proposed to build three indices — hydro, thermal and solar electricity.

Thermal electricity will be further split into thermal coal and gas.