Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation Releases Technical Report on Index of Services Production
The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released the Report of the Technical Advisory Committee on Compilation of the Index of Services Production (ISP) with Base Year 2024-25. This represents a significant milestone in strengthening India's statistical system by creating a high-frequency indicator for the services sector, which contributes nearly 53% of India's Gross Value Added (GVA) and serves as a key driver of economic growth, employment, investment, and exports.
The ISP will complement the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and provide, for the first time, a comprehensive monthly measure of short-term movements in India's formal services economy. The index will utilize GST data as its primary source, leveraging the monthly filing of millions of businesses that report outward supplies, which closely reflects production for market-based services. MoSPI will use aggregated GST data (not unit-level) deflated with suitable price deflators to estimate real changes in service sector output monthly, imposing no additional reporting burden on businesses.
For services exempt from GST, including health, education, railways, individual life and health insurance, non-AC public transport, and transport of essential commodities, the ISP will draw upon administrative datasets from railways, aviation, banking, and insurance sectors, along with the Annual Survey of India on Service Sector Enterprises (ASISSE) for health and education. This blended approach creates a unique methodology tailored to India's specific situation.
The Technical Advisory Committee, constituted in May 2025 under the chairpersonship of Ms. Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog, included representatives from academia, industry associations, and relevant ministries/departments. After extensive deliberations and a public consultation process that included an Approach Paper released on April 27, 2026, the committee has recommended a Laspeyres volume index with 2024–25 as the base year, compiled at the 2-digit NIC 2025 level using Gross Value Added (GVA) weights.
The committee recommends releasing both overall and sub-sectoral ISPs initially on a trial basis to gather stakeholder feedback, validate methodology against quarterly/annual datasets, and study index resilience. The ISP will be compiled monthly and released within 60 days of the reference month, providing a robust, internationally comparable framework for monitoring India's services economy. The trial ISP series is scheduled for release on July 14, 2026.