PIF turns the government's Wholesale Price Index into the single figure a contract conversation needs — the index factor between any two periods, for any commodity in the published basket.
Built on the Wholesale Price Index published monthly by the Office of the Economic Adviser, DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Each of these is the same arithmetic underneath — the ratio between two index values — but the tool does the part that is genuinely fiddly: finding the right commodity, the right period, and the right base year.
Apply the movement between the award period and today to a contracted rate, using the commodity the contract actually names rather than headline inflation.
Bring an old cost, valuation or claim into present-day terms, with a defensible published figure behind every step.
Separate real movement from price movement, so a nominal series can be read in constant terms.
Compare periods that sit in different WPI base years. PIF derives the linking factor from the overlap and rescales every series into one.
Nothing in the calculation is hidden. The tool shows the index it used for each period, the index for your assessment date, and the factor between them — so any number on the screen can be checked against the published tables.
Multiply a historical amount by the factor to bring it to the assessment date; divide to go the other way. Where the two periods sit in different base years, each series is first rescaled by its merge factor, so the ratio is always taken between two numbers on the same scale.
The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) has undergone multiple base revisions, the most recent being the shift to 2022-23. PIF maintains the two preceding series alongside the current one and applies the commodity-level linking factors published by the Office of the Economic Adviser to bridge them. This allows a base period in a superseded series to be compared directly against a current-period index value.
| Base year | Published coverage | Commodities | Role in the tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | April 2023 onwards | 1,136 | Primary the live series, and the default scale |
| 2011-12 | April 2012 onwards | 869 | Linked — covers the decade before the current base |
| 2004-05 | January 2005 – March 2017 | 797 | Linked — reaches back to the earliest published month held |
Coverage is whatever the Office of the Economic Adviser has published; the tool is refreshed as new months are released. Each commodity is matched across base years by its official code, and every period is taken from the most recent series that holds it, then rescaled into a single continuous index.
No account, no trial, no data entry beyond the question itself.
Search the published hierarchy by name or code. Start at All Commodities, or go down to the specific item your contract names.
Choose monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annual periods — annual runs on the fiscal year, April to March — and the assessment date to measure against.
The table returns one row per period with the index behind it and the factor against your assessment date. Export the whole table to Excel when you need to attach the workings.
The index is an official statistic, not a universal answer. Three limitations matter in commercial use, and the tool does not paper over any of them.
WPI is published every month by the OEA. The figures updated within the last (approx.) 10 weeks remain provisional. A calculation made inside that window can move slightly when the month is finalised.
Each rebasing changes the weighting diagram and the commodity list. Linking across base years is the official method, but it introduces small statistical differences.
WPI prices goods, not services. For a service-heavy contract it may not describe the cost pressure you are actually arguing about.
PIF is provided for informational and analytical purposes. Users are advised to verify critical financial calculations against the official datasets and circulars published by the Office of Economic Adviser prior to finalising.
The calculator and the commodity browser are open to everyone, with no account and no subscription. Signing in only adds saved history.