16 more food items likely on price watch

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Prices of 16 more food items, including eggs, millets, and spices, may be tracked by the government on a daily basis, given the recent spike in retail prices of several essential commodities. Currently, the department of consumer affairs (DoCA) tracks the daily prices of 22 commodities, including grains, pulses, edible oil, and vegetables.

The move will help policy planners and institutions, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), improve the quality of decision-making given that it will reduce the dependence on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which comes with a lag of one month, two government officials said, on condition of anonymity. “Those who are working on monetary policy, including RBI, look at our data sets to track the movement of CPI and project how it will behave in the coming month," one of the two officials said.

“Looking at our data one month prior to the CPI data comes, they get an idea and to some extent, it helps them." “With the new addition of 16 more commodities, DoCA will be capturing daily prices of a total of 38 commodities. The new item list will include spices, eggs, and millets," the official added.

“We are trying to capture as many items, which are in CPI food basket, as possible with the existing ones," the second official said. “The data we have, and the data captured by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI)’s CPI, will come closer in terms of food price inflation." “At present, we don’t have eggs or spices included in our existing price monitoring cell list, and if prices of these commodities shoot up, neither do we get to know about it, nor does it get reflected on our price sheet uploaded daily in the evening," the official explained.