As the Indian e-commerce is growing and the online retailing market is projected to hit $69 billion in 2020, the RBI is mulling to include it while calculating the consumer price index (CPI).
The Statistics Ministry is planning to monitor discounts on Amazon,Flipkart and Snapdeal in this regard.
CPI is a prime indicator for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to determine the monetary policy.
“Online shopping is not in our CPI basket now and since price movements may be different for a few items as compared to the regular shopping, we may include some of them as we find there is a scope for improving the basket,” an official told ET.
The ministry is looking at price movements at various sites due to discounts offered by them.
Last year, the Central Statistics Office revised the CPI base year from 2010 to 2012 to make it consistent with the international practice of shorter reference periods for most food articles and longer reference periods for items of infrequent consumption and purchase.
India’s retail inflation eased to 5.18% in February compared with 5.69% in January and 5.37% a year ago.
[Source:- Businessinsider]