More Stories

Informist, Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – Producer price inflation for securities transaction services and railway services rose in India in the March quarter, while inflation was lower across banking, pension, and insurance services, according to the data released by the commerce ministry. The service sector inflation data, the first of its kind in India, is part of the new Producer Price Indices released Monday, along with the revamped Wholesale Price Index series.

 

"The Services Producer Price Index suggests largely benign inflationary trends despite some uptick in 4QFY26 (Jan-Mar)," Teresa John, economist at Nirmal Bang, said in a note.

 

The ministry released three producer price indices — output PPI, trial input PPI, and service PPI — to track prices. Major global economies track PPI, a better inflation indicator than WPI. While the government plans to phase out the WPI data over the next five years, replacing it with output PPI, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade will work to expand the scope of the service PPIs, which currently track only seven sectors.

 

India's securities transaction service price inflation climbed to 0.55% in the March quarter from (-)15.63% in the corresponding period a year ago. It was (-)4.80% in the December quarter. 

 

Railway service price inflation rose to 1.18% in Jan-Mar from 0.00% a year ago and 0.49% a quarter ago. Of this, railway passenger service price inflation rose to 3.5% in Jan-Mar from 0.0% a year ago, while freight service price inflation was flat at 0.0% in the last quarter of 2025-26 (Apr-Mar).

 

"... there was considerable downside pressure on account of banking, insurance, telecom and management of pensions," Sonal Badhan, economist at Bank of Baroda, said in a note.

 

The banking service price inflation fell to (-)3.72% in Jan-Mar, down from (-)2.51% a year ago, while banking service contribution inflation moderated to 1.89% in the March quarter from 4.43% a year ago.

 

India's telecom service price inflation was 0.99% in the three months to March, sharply lower than 7.03% a year ago. Insurance service price inflation moderated to 0.59% in the March quarter from 2.40% in the year-ago period.

The management of pension service price inflation also fell to (-)0.76% in Jan-Mar from 2.35% a year ago. The air (passenger) service price index was 106.9 in the March quarter. The figure is not comparable with year ago due to the unavailability of previous data.

 

Currently, the service Producer Price Indices track only seven services on a quarterly basis, with a 55-day lag from the close of the reference quarter. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade aims to cover the entire service sector, with at least 60% of services covered by the end of FY27. The ministry will release the service PPIs data for the June quarter on Aug. 24.

 

Along with the new PPI rollout, the ministry also released a new series of WPI, with FY23 as the base year, on Monday. The new WPI series tracks 957 items, up from 697 items in the FY12 series. WPI inflation rose to at least a 26-month high of 9.68% in May from 8.26% in April, on the back of fuel and food inflation owing to the war in West Asia.

 

India's output PPI — a close proxy for WPI — inflation rose to 9.38% in May from 8.06% in April. Output PPI tracks the price a factory gets for a produced item. The manufacturing sector's input PPI was 104.9 in May, unchanged from April.  End

 

Reported by Shweta

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.