5.2 Selection of items for the revised series was based on the recommendations of the Working-Group, which considered their relative importance/ share in total transactions. A sub-group was constituted to select the agricultural commodities keeping in view the considerable changes that have taken place in that sector since the last revision. Though there is limited possibility of new commodities emerging in the agricultural sector, yet there could be a few from among those not included in the existing series which, over these years, have emerged as important items of transaction in the wholesale market and therefore deserve consideration. Similarly it is possible that some of the items in the existing series might have declined in importance and need to be dropped and could possibly involve replacement by other varieties. The proposals for inclusion of new commodities were considered in the light of availability of relevant data for the weighting diagram. Further, whenever the reporting of prices was found to be irregular from past records, that variety or the market, as the case may be, was replaced by a new variety/market with regular availability of prices. In the case of specification of varieties of certain commercial crops like tea, coffee, tobacco, jute, cotton, raw silk and raw rubber, the Working Group has taken into consideration the views of the Tea Board, Coffee Board, Directorate of Tobacco Development, Directorate of Jute Development of India, Cotton Corporation of India, Silk Board and the Rubber Board, respectively.

5.3 The selection of items in the ‘mineral’ sector has been made along the line suggested by the Indian Bureau of Mines. It was decided by the Working-Group that the most representative grade of mineral, out of the list proposed by the Ministry of Mines, should be taken. Price information of these minerals are collected from Indian Bureau of Mines.

5.4 The revised WPI series includes ten items of petroluem products, which could adequately represent the petroleum sector, and hence, petroleum crude as an intermediate product could be dropped. Moreover crude petroleum is used only by the refineries, and there is no general wholesale market for this. In view of this petroleum crude has been shifted from the first major group i.e. "primary articles" to the second major group i.e. "Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants" in the group "mineral oils" and the weight that was originally assigned to crude petroleum has been spread over the petro-products. The items of coal mining included in the revised series have been those proposed by the Department of Coal. Similarly, the Central Electrical Authority have suggested the electricity categories which have been included in the revised series of WPI .

5.5 The values of outputs of the manufactured items proposed for inclusion in the WPI basket are based on ASI data for 1993-94. For the selection of manufactured products the basic criteria adopted is the traded value of the product with reference to the year 1993-94. The traded value of an item during 1993-94 is defined as being equal to the value of output as per ASI 1993-94 plus imports minus exports during 1993-94. Based on this measure and other considerations pertaining to representation, it was considered appropriate to adopt the cut-off level of Rs.120 crore or more of the traded value for inclusion in this series. The selection of specification as also the sources for price data in respect of manufactured products have been made out of the top ten manufacturers producing a particular commodity following a systematic procedure. Initially, a list of ten leading manufacturers for each selected item was prepared. On the basis of information on manufacturers provided by FICCI and ASSOCHAM all the manufacturers were informed about the proposal to include the items manufactured by them in the commodity basket of the revised WPI series and were requested to furnish the requisite price data on weekly basis from April 1993-94. All possible efforts were made to obtain price data from as many sources and as many representative grades/specifications as possible. A minimum of three grades/specifications of selected items was considered necessary for the inclusion in the index. Due care was also taken to have these selected quotations spread over different manufacturers and locations.

5.7 In a review meeting taken to assess the progress made in data collection effort, it was found that the revision task was stalled mainly due to non-response by manufactures to the Secretariat’s bid to procure wholesale price information in respect of 200 manufactured products. The Working-Group decided that officers in the Office of the Economic Adviser needed to visit various states to collect relevant wholesale price data in consultation with senior officials of the selected state governments. To facilitate the on-going task, it was found necessary to secure the support of a letter from secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (IPP) to the Chief Secretary concerned. This was followed by officials of the Office of Economic Adviser visiting some of the state government offices. They also met with Directors of several industries and groups and Chamber of Commerce to ensure the supply of price data on urgent basis. Commissioners of Excise and Customs of a few important states were also involved in ensuring the supply of price data.

5.8 The urgency and importance attached to the effort was underlined by the Economic Adviser and Deputy Economic Adviser, Ministry of Industry personally visiting several states to join their hands in this effort.

5.9 The new series with 1993-94 as the base has as many as 435 items in the commodity basket. To reflect the structural changes in the economy that have taken place over a decade, a large number of commodities have been added and a few with diminished importance have been dropped. In the revised series, "Primary articles" contribute 98 items, "Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants" 19 items, and "Manufactured products" provide 318 items. The number of price quotations in the revised series is spread out to as many as 1918 quotations. The average number of price quotations per item works out to 4.40 for the revised series (1993-94 = 100).

5.10 Table 5.1 sets out the number of items and price quotations at the level of major groups/groups in the existing as well as in the revised series.

5.11 It can be seen from Table 5.1 that out of three major groups only Primary Articles show an increase in the number of items in the revised series. Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants and Manufactured Products

5.12 A complete directory of the commodities, their specifications, markets and price reporting agencies included in the revised series is given in Annexure-IV.

5.13 With a view to reflect changes that have occurred in the structure of the economy, a number of new items have been added to the Index and a few unimportant ones have been dropped. There has also been an amalgamation of certain unimportant items with some others akin to them. Splitting them into important grades/varieties and treating each grade/variety as separate item has expanded the list for some products.

5.14 In all, there are 136 new items added in the revised series. Out of that, Primary articles account for 13, Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants contribute 1, and Manufactured Products have 122 new commodities. The Group Machine and Machine Tools within Manufactured Products has the highest number of new commodities. There are a few grades/varieties which have graduated into full-fledged items, having their own weights and indices. Under the sub-groups Egg, Fish and Meat, the commodity "Fish" has been bifurcated into two items, namely Fish-marine & Fish-inland. Similarly, the commodity Rubber and Canvas Footwear under the group Rubber and Plastic Products have been bifurcated into two namely Rubber Chappal and Canvas Footwear. Again, a few items of the current series have been amalgamated because of their similarity in characteristics and for making their description more meaningful. On account of this, 13 items of Electricity have been amalgamated into 4 items in the 1993-94 series. As many as 150 items of the current series have been deleted due to those having become insignificant in terms of their relative value of production in the economy.

5.15 The group-wise details of these newly added items, dropped items, sub-divided items and merged items are presented in the following table: