New Delhi, June 17 -- A shortfall in rainfall so far this monsoon threatens to push up already-hot prices in India. Inflation based on the wholesale price index (WPI) rose to 9.7% in May.

This reading is from an updated index that replaces 2011-12 with 2022-23 as its base year, uses a basket of 957 items instead of 697 earlier and can boast of methodological tweaks that capture price levels better.

As the rejigged WPI uses 'gross value of output' over 'net traded value,' it reflects price patterns at the production level more closely. Other measures reduce index volatility and plug data gaps well.

The government also launched a set of producer price and service indices. Of these, an output producer price index (PPI) is expected to play...