The Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour & Employment has revised the base year of the Consumer Price Index Numbers for Agricultural Labourers and Rural Labourers (CPI – AL & RL) to 2019=100. The newly constructed CPI – AL & RL series (Base: 2019=100) replaces the CPI – AL/RL (Base: 1986-87=100) series.

The revised series has significantly enhanced the scope and coverage and incorporated many methodological changes in order to make the indices more robust. These are: the weighting diagrams (share of expenditure to total expenditure) have been revised due to changes in consumption patterns; use of the Geometric Mean (GM) in place of the Arithmetic Mean (AM), as GM moderates the volatility in prices; use of the latest classification of individual consumption according to purpose, in line with the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP)-2018; calculation of prices of PDS items using the admissibility concept instead of availability as in the old series; the revised series covers 34 States/UTs as against 20 States in the old series; prices are collected from 787 sample villages as against 600 villages in the old series; and ~150–200 items are covered as against ~65–106 items in the old series.

The average annual inflation rates based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for AL/RL (Base: 2019=100) have been moderate as compared to the old series (Base: 1987=100).

The Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) and Rural Labourers (CPI-RL), with base year 2019=100, for the month of June 2025 stands at 134 points each. The year-on-year inflation rates for June 2025 based on the CPI – AL and CPI - RL stand at 1.42% and 1.73% respectively.

A detailed note on the base revision exercise may be accessed on the official website of the Labour Bureau: https://www.labourbureau.gov.in/.      

 

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Manish Gautam/Divyanshu Kumar

(Release ID: 2145905)