India has introduced the new CPI 2024 series, aligning with the ‘COICOP 2018’ structure to ensure global comparability. The report from SBI Research revealed that the share of food and beverages under the new series stands at 36.75%, contrasting with the projected 40.10% under the old CPI 2012 classification. This updated series, covering 90% of weights with 148 items, offers valuable insights for inflation forecasting, corporate pricing strategies, and scenario analysis.
The new CPI series reflects changes in urbanization patterns, with Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Haryana emerging as top states in urbanization trends. Notably, the exclusion of PDS items is expected to positively impact food inflation across states, as per the report’s findings. Telangana stands out with the highest inflation rate among states, attributed to the aftermath of the bifurcation of “erstwhile United Andhra Pradesh.”
Most major states, barring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, recorded an overall inflation rate below 3% in January 2026. The updated CPI series has notably adjusted the weightage of housing, water, transport, information, and communication in rural areas compared to the previous series. Conversely, for urban areas, the weight of housing, water, food, and beverages has decreased in the new series.
Expanding the number of weighted items to 358 from 299, the new CPI series encompasses 1,465 rural, 1,395 urban markets, and 12 online markets. It also reduces the weight of food in the CPI basket from 45.8% to 40.1%. The basket for CPI estimation now includes items such as rural housing, online media/streaming services, value-added dairy products, barley, pendrive, and external hard disks.
