India May WPI Inflation Surges to 9.68% Under New Series

India’s wholesale price index-based inflation rose to 9.68% in May from 8.26% in April under the new WPI series with 2022-23 as the base year, driven by fuel and power, manufactured products and primary articles, the commerce ministry said today.

The WPI usually shows into retail inflation with a lag of couple of months. Also, retail fuel prices can indirectly be kept low limiting rise in consumer inflation.

The new series replaces the existing WPI series with 2011-12 as the base year. The Office of Economic Adviser also released a new Output Producer Price Index, a trial Input Producer Price Index for manufacturing and Service Producer Price Indices for seven services with the same base year.

The ministry said WPI will be released for five years along with PPI and then discontinued, giving users time to shift to PPI. The move aligns India’s price measurement framework with global practices and IMF recommendations, it said.

WPI Inflation

The all-commodities WPI index rose to 109.9 in May from 108.8 in April.

Fuel and power inflation rose to 30.33% in May from 24.89% in April. Manufactured products inflation increased to 7.48% from 6.68%, while primary articles inflation rose to 4.99% from 3.78%.

WPI food inflation rose to 4.49% in May from 3.11% in April. The food index includes food articles from the primary articles group and manufactured food products.

The ministry said mineral oils, crude petroleum and natural gas, chemicals and chemical products, and basic metals were major drivers of WPI inflation in April and May.

Producer Price Indices

Output PPI for all commodities stood at 109.6 in May, compared with 108.6 in April. This shows an inflation of 9.38% against 8.06% in April.

Within Output PPI, index for agriculture, forestry and fishing rose to 111.9 from 111.2, while mining and quarrying eased to 122.3 from 122.5. Manufactured products rose to 109.5 from 108.3, while electricity fell to 90.2 from 90.6.

The trial Input PPI for the manufacturing sector stood at 104.9 in May, unchanged from April. The ministry said the monthly trial Input PPI is being published on an experimental basis from March 2026 to examine data quality and receive stakeholder feedback.

Service PPI

Service PPIs were released for seven services in the first phase — banking, securities transaction, insurance, management of pension funds, railways, air passenger services and telecom.

For the January-March quarter, the securities transaction service price index rose to 91.7 from 89.2 in the previous quarter. The banking service price index fell to 100.9 from 102.2, while the insurance service price index rose to 102.8 from 102.0.

The telecom service price index was unchanged at 112.2. The railway service price index rose to 103.3 from 102.6, while the air passenger service price index fell to 106.9 from 107.3.

New WPI Series
The new WPI series expands the number of items to 957 from 697.

Solar, wind and nuclear electricity have been added under the electricity group. Crude petroleum and natural gas have been shifted from primary articles to fuel and power to create a more integrated structure for tracking energy prices.

The ministry said gross value of output has been used to prepare weights for the 2022-2023 series, replacing net traded value used in the 2011-2012 series. It said this better reflects domestic production rather than trade flows.

The new series also uses a short-term formulation method to compile elementary indices and targeted mean imputation for missing price data, replacing the carry-forward method used earlier.