The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), a Left-leaning trade union, has questioned the delay in releasing All India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (AICPI-IW) for February and March. In a letter to Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen urged the Centre to release the data, compiled by the Labour Bureau, without further delay and said such a delay is very unusual.
Mr. Sen in his letter said that AICPI-IW is a very important labour statistics as it is indispensable for regulation of wages and Dearness Allowance for millions of workers and employees in the country. “These indices are also used for measuring inflation and other policy formulations. But, we are constrained to bring to your notice that it has not been released for the last two months – February and March, 2024,” he said.
He added that the index for April is to be released on May 31 as per the norms and practices of releasing the previous month’s index on the last working day of the succeeding month. “This practice has been followed since long till January 2024. Accordingly, the January 2024 index was duly released on February 29, 2024 the last working day of the succeeding month. In the meantime, through a press release, we learnt that Labour Ministry promised to release the AICPI-IW for February 2024 on March 28. But it didn’t do so. Similarly, the index for March, 2024 should have been released on April 30, 2024. That also didn’t take place,” Mr. Sen said in the letter.
The former member of Rajya Sabha alleged that neither Labour Bureau nor Labour Ministry has come out with an explanation for not releasing and publishing the indices on the stipulated dates. “Due to this inordinate delay, the employees from Central Public Sector, including bank employees, are losing their legitimate Dearness Allowance to be announced in April, after taking the average of CPI-IW for the past three months, namely December, January and February,” he said.
Mr. Sen added that various statements of government and press release on the inflation seems to have taken cognisance of the AICPI-IW indices. “It means that the figures are very-well available with Labour Bureau. Obviously, AICPI-IW is essential to calculate the Dearness Allowance so as to contain the continuous erosion in the real wages rate due to ever increasing prices of essential commodities,” he said asking Mr. Yadav to take appropriate measures to immediately release the February and March indices and to release the April index on May 31.
Published - May 22, 2024 09:20 pm IST
