The move is aimed at better capturing shifts in consumption patterns among industrial workers over the past decade.
It has reached out to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation to conduct the survey, a senior government official told ET. Discussions are underway to roll it out by mid-year, the official added.
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The Technical Advisory Committee on Statistics of Prices and Cost of Living will vet the methodology before the exercise begins.
The CPI-IW, currently with 2016 as the base year, has been in force since September 2020. The index tracks the movement of retail prices in a fixed basket of goods and services consumed by industrial workers.
It is a key benchmark for determining wages and dearness allowance across sectors.
Labour min writes to MoSPI; survey likely by mid-yr to know consumption pattern shifts
The proposed survey will gather granular data on income and spending patterns of working-class households, defined as families where at least half the income comes from manual work in select sectors. The index currently covers workers at factories, mines, plantations, railways, public transport undertakings, electricity utilities and ports.
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Past revisions highlight changing consumption trends. When the base year shifted to 2016 from 2001, the weight of food and beverages in the basket dropped to 39.2% from 46.2%, while housing rose to 16.9%. The number of items in the basket also expanded to 463 from 392.
Compiled by the Labour Bureau since 1944, the CPI-IW has undergone periodic base revisions to reflect evolving consumption patterns, with earlier series spanning 1949, 1960, 1982 and 2001.