RBI paper fills the gap in state-wise inflation for four Covid months
An RBI working paper uses its household survey to estimate state-level urban inflation for April and May of 2020 and 2021, when official figures were never published.
Official title: RBI Working Paper No. 01/2026: Data Gaps in State-Level Inflation: An Assessment for the Covid Period · Press Release 2026-2027/1298
What happened
During Covid lockdowns, official prices could not be collected properly. India published estimated all-India inflation for April and May 2020, but state-wise urban inflation figures are still missing for April and May 2020 and April and May 2021.
In this working paper, Purnima Shaw and R. K. Sinha use RBI's household inflation survey, which kept running by telephone in the pandemic, along with each state's past inflation, to estimate the missing state figures. When added up, their state estimates stay close to the official all-India numbers, within roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points for each month.
The authors say state-level inflation data matter because RBI targets inflation, and that filling these gaps helps future research. The views are the authors', not RBI's.
What it means for you
No direct effect. This is research to fill a gap in historical data.
What it means for businesses
No direct effect. Researchers and analysts who study inflation by state now have estimates for months that were missing.
Links in this release, explained
- Data Gaps in State-Level Inflation: An Assessment for the Covid Period
The full working paper, with the method, the tests of its accuracy against past data and the state-by-state estimates for the four missing months.
www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/PublicationsView.aspx?id=24096
Read the original
Press release on rbi.org.in ↗ Official PDF ↗
This explainer simplifies the official text. If anything here differs from the RBI's release, the release is right.