Overview
- The statistics ministry released an approach paper Monday outlining a monthly Index of Service Production for the formal sector and invited comments by May 5.
- The plan uses aggregated Goods and Services Tax data on outward supplies, with no unit-level access to protect confidentiality.
- The proposal sets 2024-25 as the base year and applies price deflators such as WPI, CPI, GVA and Service Producer Price Indices (PPIs), using base-shifting and splicing to align series.
- Coverage spans more than 40 sub-sectors, yet GST-exempt and informal activity stay out, leaving about 33% of services GVA untracked, with health and education near 10%.
- The new gauge would complement the industrial production index and reduce reliance on survey-based Purchasing Managers’ Indexes, while later updates could draw on producer price work and a services survey to sharpen GDP estimates.