India, Nov. 1 -- SC Garg, the secretary of ministry of statistics and programme implementation, made a significant announcement during a recent interview in a daily newspaper. He said that the Government was ready to launch a new consumer price from February 2026. The timing was interesting: Soon after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget. An overhaul of the existing inflation index was overdue because the existing one comprises many items that are obsolete and redundant in today's world.

At present, the Consumer Price Index includes nearly 300 items, each of which has its weightage. Given the weightages across this large number of products, and the rate at which the individual prices rise, the specific price in...