New consumer price index (CPI) series showed that food and clothing retail price for combined rural and urban population shot up by 1.18 per cent in August against the previous month. But, analysts said not much should be read on the monthly data as it was yet to be available on yearly basis and that the data was yet to stabilise. Central Statistics Office (CSO) has introduced a new series of consumer price indices on base 2010=100 for all-India and states separately for rural, urban and combined with effect from January this year. Provisional indices for August were released on Monday. The annual inflation rates would be available only from January 2012 when the indices for one year are available, a government statement said.

Earlier, there were three separate consumer price indices released on monthly basis for industrial workers, urban manual workers and agriculture and rural labour.

CPI based on retail prices stood at 111.7 points in August 2011 compared with 110.4 points in July 2011. At the all-India level, the CPI for 'food, beverages and tobacco' went up by 1.27 per cent to 111.7 points in August 2011 from 110.3 points in the previous month.

The main increase was seen in the prices of vegetables with the index rising by 4.61 per cent month-on-month to 113.4 points while the indices for milk, milk products and fruits went up by over one per cent each.

In August 2011, the CPI for ‘clothing, bedding and footwear’ stood at 117.7 points on an all-India basis as against 116.4 points in July 2011, an increase of 1.12 per cent.

“We cannot deduce much from the monthly CPI data. It needs time to stabilise,” Crisil chief economist DK Joshi said. “The government began releasing the nationwide CPI from January this year. It will need at one full year before inflation data could be measured,” Joshi said.

In advanced countries, consumer price index is used for measurement of inflation as it reflected retail prices whereas in India it is WPI as so far as combined consumer price index for all population was available.