The Left-leaning trade union– Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)– has turned to the Union labor and employment minister Bhupender Yadav for disclosing the data of the All India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (AICPI – IW) for February and March 2024.
AICPI-IW is an essential matrix, depending upon the wage and dearness allowance of workers are regulated. CPI-IW acts as an indicator of the retail price situation prevalent in this country. It helps in real wage calculation. These indices play a crucial role in determining the poverty line in the country. In addition, these indices are integral in price adjustments in Business, Individual, and Public Works contracts.
In a letter to the Union Labour Minister, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen requested the Centre to release the data compiled by the Labour Bureau without any further delay and termed such a delay unusual.
“The All India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers is one of the most important labor statistics as it is indispensable for the regulation of wages and dearness allowance for millions of workers and employees in the country. These indices are also used to measure inflation and other policy formulations,” the trade union said in a letter to the minister.
The CPI-IW figures for February and March are yet to be disclosed by the labor bureau, and the Ministry owes an explanation for not releasing the indices on the stipulated dates.
“Due to this inordinate delay, the employees from the central public sector, including banks are losing their legitimate dearness allowance (DA) to be announced in the month of April, after taking the average of CPI – IW for the past three months, namely – December, January and February. It is essential to calculate the DA, so as to contain the continuous price erosion in the real wage rate due to ever-increasing prices of essential commodities,” the letter reads.
Mr Sen added that the index for April will come out on May 31 as per the norms. It’s a long-followed practice to release the previous month’s index on the last working day of the succeeding month. However, this trend was broken by not releasing February data, then of March.
As per the practice, the data for the January 2024 index was duly released on February 29, 2024 (the last working day of the succeeding month). However, Mr. Sen, in a letter, shared that through a press release, they learned that the AICPI-IW for February 2024 was supposed to be released on March 28. But it didn’t happen. Similarly, the index for March 2024 must have been out on April 30, 2024, which also turned untrue.
The responsibility of compiling, maintaining, and releasing the data on the last day of every successive month is on the labor bureau, an attached office of the Union Labor Ministry.