- The central government has changed the base year to 2017-18 to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) to accommodate and factor the changes take place in the economic scenario of the country.
- The new base year for GDP and IIP will be 2017-18 and for CPI, it will be 2018.
Other initiatives
- According to the Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the Ministry has launched a Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) in April, 2017 to assess the labour force scenario in the country.
- The Ministry has been operating two Schemes, namely, (i) Capacity Development (CD) Scheme and (ii) Members of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) Scheme.
- -In addition, the Ministry provides Grants-in-Aid to Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), an institute of National importance, for its day to day functioning, infrastructure development and research/academic activities.
- The National Statistical System Training Academy (NSSTA) has been established as an apex training academy on official statistics to impart training to statistical officers/ staff of Centre & State/UT Governments and other countries, academia and students.
- The Ministry is the nodal agency for devising framework for monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Four New Surveys launched: The Ministry announced to launch four new surveys which are:
- Annual Survey of Services,
- Survey of Informal Enterprises,
- Time Use Survey and
- The Economic Census.
- The Economic Census will also be linked to the GST Network to create a business register of all establishments in the country.