India’s service producer prices recorded a mixed movement during the first quarter of 2026-27, with significant increases in air passenger services, pension fund management and selected transport and communication segments, according to provisional government data released on Monday.
The Service Producer Price Index (PPI), based on 2022-23 prices, showed air passenger service prices rising 31.94 per cent year-on-year during Q1 FY27. Management of pension funds recorded a 5.20 per cent increase, while railway services rose 1.27 per cent. Insurance prices increased 0.98 per cent and telecom services registered a 0.72 per cent rise.
Within railway services, passenger-related prices increased 3.50 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, while freight service prices rose a modest 0.10 per cent.
The trend was different in financial services. Banking service prices declined 3.35 per cent during the quarter, while securities transaction services fell 1.32 per cent. However, the separately reported Banking Service Contribution Index increased 6.90 per cent.
The government currently compiles Service PPIs for seven sectors: securities transactions, banking, pension fund management, insurance, telecom, railways and air passenger services. Since these sectors do not represent the entire services economy, the government has not assigned an overall weight to them, though weights are used for individual sub-services.
The Service PPI was first released in June 2026 as part of the revised price-statistics framework, with 2022-23 as the new WPI base year. The index aims to track prices received by service producers and could eventually help in economic analysis and national-account calculations.
The next Service PPI data, covering Q2 FY27, will be released on November 25.
