Guide

Escalate a price in three steps

1. Choose the commodities your price depends on — search by name or WPI code, or open one of your saved My Indexes.
2. Choose the assessment period — the date you are escalating to — and how often you want figures: monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually.
3. Calculate. Pick the period you are escalating from in the result card and, if you like, enter the base amount. PIF shows the index factor, the percentage change and the escalated amount, with a chart and the full table below.

Open the calculator

Reading the result

For a base price agreed in Jul 2025 and escalated to Jul 2026:

The table lists the factor for every period up to the assessment period, so one calculation answers the question for any starting date. Download the Excel file for the complete working, including each base year's index and the scale factors.

Terms used in PIF

Index factor

How many times prices moved between a period and your assessment period: assessment-period index ÷ that period’s index. A factor of 1.0842 means prices were 8.42% higher at the assessment period. Multiply a base price by the factor to escalate it.

Assessment period

The date you are escalating to — usually the date of the bill, delivery or revised contract. Every row in the results is compared with it.

Wholesale Price Index (WPI)

The official index of wholesale prices in India, published monthly by the Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). PIF uses its published values unchanged.

Base year

The year a WPI series is set to 100. The government has published three series: 2004-05, 2011-12 and the current 2022-23. Values from different base years are on different scales and cannot be compared directly.

Combined index

One continuous index built from all three series, expressed on the 2022-23 scale. Each period comes from the newest series that covers it, converted onto the 2022-23 scale with a scale factor. Because both sides of the index factor are on the same scale, the factor itself does not depend on the base year.

Scale factor (MF)

The multiplying factor that converts an older series onto the 2022-23 scale. It is measured from the first period where the two series overlap for that commodity.

Series links

Most 2022-23 commodities were renumbered, so PIF links each one to its counterpart in the 2011-12 and 2004-05 series using the official mapping. You can re-point or remove a link under “Series links” in the results; in an organisation, owners and admins set them for everyone.

Provisional

The two most recently published months are provisional and may be revised by the government. PIF marks them so you can decide whether to wait for final figures.

Extrapolated

An estimate for a period after the latest published data (Jul 2026). It continues the combined index at the compound growth rate measured from the period you choose (by default ten years before the latest data).

Back-interpolated

An estimate for a period before the earliest published data, going back to 1920. It extends the combined index backwards at the compound growth rate measured across its whole published span. Use with care.

Quarterly, half-yearly and annual periods

Averages of the monthly index over the months in each period. Quarters, halves and years follow the financial year you choose — with April as the start, 2025 means April 2025 to March 2026 and Q1 is April to June.

Where the data comes from

All index values are the Wholesale Price Index as published by the Office of the Economic Adviser (DPIIT) at eaindustry.nic.in. PIF is updated after each monthly release; the latest published period is Jul 2026.

• 2004-05 series — January 2005 to March 2017
• 2011-12 series — April 2012 onwards
• 2022-23 series — April 2023 onwards (the current official series)