Economic reporting gets a boost: India to launch monthly labour surveys and update IIP

New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has put its 2025-26 Advance Release Calendar on its website for the public. This is part of its endeavours to improve openness and expedite statistics reporting.

The schedule is more comprehensive than any year. It outlines planned publication dates for major macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, CPI, and IIP. Moreover, the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), and Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) are also covered.

For the first time, the new Private Sector Capex data (titled – Booklet on Private Corporate Sector CAPEX Investment Intentions 2024) will be released on 30 April 2025.

The MoSPI, a nodal agency, has introduced a private sector capex survey, along with monthly labour force data, and has also released industrial output data (i.e. IIP) with a revised schedule from this fiscal year (i.e. FY26 -2025-26).

Revision of scheduled date of IIP data

From this FY26, MoSPI has revised the schedule of the release date of IIP from the 12t^h of every month, with a lag of 42 days, to the 28^th of every month, reducing the period cycle to 30 days.

Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)

Due to increasing demand for more regular employment statistics – the government will release monthly PLFS reports from April this year. It will cover both rural and urban areas. Earlier, the PLFS used to be available only quarterly (quarterly on urban data and rural data was published annually). The release date for this PLFS report is set for the 15th of every month, commencing April 2025. Once the quarter ends, the quarterly report will soon follow, a month later. By implementing these changes, India has strengthened its Economic data. This will provide more timely, accurate and significant insights to policymakers, analysts, and the RBI for their decision-making.