Government Updates Base Year for Index of Core Industries

#GS-3 #Economy #Infrastructure #Current Events #National #Index of Core Industries #Index of Industrial Production

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The Union Government recently released an updated series of the **Index of Core Industries (ICI)** after changing its base year to **2022-23** from **2011-12**.

The **Index of Core Industries (ICI)** is a monthly index that measures output levels across major core sectors that support India's overall infrastructure.
The index serves as a key early indicator for the broader **Index of Industrial Production (IIP)**, where core sectors make up a major share.
The **Office of Economic Adviser** under the **Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)** compiles and publishes this index every month.
This revision aims to update the core sector data so it reflects modern economic patterns, modern consumption trends, and updated national accounting metrics like **GDP** and **CPI**.

The government updated the base year to **2022-23=100** to better capture current manufacturing trends and industrial strength.
The index now tracks **9 core industries** instead of 8 after adding **Iron Ore**, which received a weight of **4.905%**.
For steel, the index now uses **gross production data** instead of net production to stay consistent with the **IIP** method.
To avoid double-counting in coal data, the index now tracks **raw coal exclusively** and excludes coal middlings and washed coal.
Sector weights were rebalanced using new proportion data, making **Electricity** the largest sector with a weight of **30.932%**, up from 19.85%.
The weight for **Refinery Products** dropped to **22.572%** from its earlier weight of 28.04%.
The weightage for **Coal** dropped to **5.596%** from 10.33%, while **Natural Gas** decreased to **3.841%** from 6.88%.
The weight of **Fertilizers** saw a minor increase to **2.731%** compared to its earlier weight of 2.63%.

Updating the base year to **2022-23** gives economists and policymakers a far more precise picture of India's industrial performance.
Aligning the **ICI** with other indices like **IIP**, **GDP**, and **WPI** helps the government make better economic decisions.