Inflation to remain in double digit till Jan: Pronab Sen

New Delhi, Sept 25 (UNI) Chief Statistician of India Pronab Sen today projected inflation to be in double digit till January and favoured that data on inflation be released on a monthly basis.

Dr Sen, who is also Secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, told newspersons here that the high inflation rate till January would be on account of the base year effect.

Base year effect is on account of prices in a year-ago period.

Dr Sen said stabilisation of prices on a month to month basis was a result of cooling of prices of commodities resulting from lower global prices. This, he described, as the second round effect of commodity prices like oil and steel.

The commodity prices had stabilised in May, he said, adding the inflation of manufactured products continued to be high.

Inflation rose to 12.14 per cent for the first week of September.

Dr Sen supported a proposal to release inflation figures on a monthly basis.

''Inflation figures coming weekly does not make any sense. Almost every other data comes on a monthly basis. The WPI data pertains to macro-economic parameteres. We don't have instruments to measure prices on weekly basis. So accuracy is not maintained,'' he said.

Dr Sen said there were Departments like the Ministry of Consumer Affairs collecting data on prices, which he said should continue.

UNI GS SG AS1506