The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released an approach paper outlining the proposed methodology and invited comments from experts, academicians, central government ministries and departments, state governments, financial institutions and other stakeholders.
Feedback on the proposal can be submitted until October 16, 2026. The approach paper has been made available on the MoSPI website.
Services have become the principal contributor to India’s economic activity, accounting for more than half of the country’s Gross Value Added (GVA). The ministry is therefore seeking to strengthen the way short-term changes in the sector are measured.
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MoSPI began compiling the ISP on a monthly basis for the formal services sector on a trial basis in July 2026. The exercise uses 2024-25 as the base year and was designed to provide a higher-frequency measure of services-sector performance.
The initial version of the index covers 19 broad service sub-sectors. It draws on high-frequency administrative datasets as well as information on outward supplies reported through the Goods and Services Tax system.Together, these sources currently cover around 60 per cent of services-sector GVA. However, the existing framework does not include several important areas of the economy.
Government functions, non-market activities and services that are exempt from GST remain outside the present structure. MoSPI is now proposing to bring some of these areas into the monthly index to make its coverage more representative.
The latest approach paper focuses on three significant service categories that are currently excluded from the ISP — Education, Human Health & Residential Care, and Public Administration & Defence.
These three segments together accounted for nearly 21 per cent of services GVA in 2024-25. Their inclusion would take the coverage of the monthly ISP to approximately 78.4 per cent of total services-sector GVA.
The proposed expansion is aimed at creating a broader measure that can track movements across a much larger portion of India’s services economy. It would also allow the individual sub-sector indices to be combined into a single Index of Services Production.
The ministry said the expanded framework is intended to provide a more representative picture of short-term changes in services-sector activity.
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The move comes as policymakers increasingly rely on high-frequency indicators to assess economic conditions between quarterly national accounts releases. A wider ISP could provide a more comprehensive monthly signal on the performance of a sector that contributes more than half of India’s GVA.
MoSPI has sought stakeholder views on the methodology before proceeding with the proposed expansion. The feedback process will allow experts, government bodies, financial institutions and other stakeholders to comment on the approach and suggest changes before the broader framework is implemented.