January’s inflation print, 2.75%, was the first in a new consumer price series with a 2024 base. Food counts for less, housing for more, and the basket finally looks like how Indian households spend today.
On February 12, India published its first inflation number using a new measuring stick. The Consumer Price Index now uses 2024 as its base year, replacing 2012, and the basket of goods and services it tracks has been rebuilt from a fresh nationwide survey of household spending. Under the new series, retail inflation for January 2026 was 2.75%.
Why the basket needed changing
A price index is only as good as its basket. The old CPI weighted items according to how households spent in 2011-12, before cheap mobile data, food delivery apps, streaming subscriptions and the explosion of online shopping. Since then, Indian households have spent a smaller share of their budgets on food and a larger share on rent, transport, education, health and services. The new household consumption survey of 2023-24 captured that shift.
The most important change is in the weights. Food’s weight is lower and housing’s is higher. That matters because food prices are volatile, swinging with every monsoon and every onion shortage, while housing costs rise slowly and steadily. A basket with less food should produce an inflation number that jumps around less, and that tracks the cost pressures of a city family more accurately.
If the basket is out of date, the inflation number answers a question nobody is asking any more.
A caution on comparisons
Because the basket and weights changed, comparing January 2026’s 2.75% directly with, say, October 2025’s record low of 0.25% is not quite like for like. Statisticians publish linking factors to bridge the two series, but headlines rarely use them. GDP is getting the same treatment this month, with a new 2022-23 base. Both changes make India’s numbers more trustworthy, which matters to investors, to the RBI and to anyone trying to understand what is really happening to prices.
Sources: MoSPI press release on the new CPI series, February 12, 2026.
- The new CPI series uses 2024 as its base year, replacing 2012.
- January 2026 inflation under the new series was 2.75%.
- Food has a smaller weight and housing a larger one, reflecting how spending has changed.
- Comparisons with pre-2026 data need care, because the basket is different.
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