How fast are prices rising in your part of India?
The news gives one number for all of India. But prices rise at different speeds in different places and for different things. In June 2026 they went up 6.36% in Telangana and just 1.63% in Mizoram, and across India food rose 5.05% while healthcare rose 1.42%. Pick your state to see what it means for your money.
Why one number isn't enough
Petrol costs more in Hyderabad than in Delhi because of state tax, not the global market. Food prices in Bihar and Maharashtra can rise at very different speeds in the same month. This site breaks the national figure back down, state by state, using only official government data.
What got pricier.
Average price rise from April 2024 to March 2025, the latest full year broken down by state.
Two more things you can do here.
Why things cost what they do.
Nine short chapters, one for each big thing households spend on.
Where are prices rising fastest?
Every state ranked by how fast its prices are rising, and how things have changed since 2014.
The price-rise league table.
Number 1 is where prices rose fastest. Use the slider to go back in time. Your state is highlighted.
Your state's prices since 2014.
How fast prices rose in your state each year, against India as a whole. The slider above picks the year shown in the cards.
What's your effective
inflation rate?
The national headline blends everyone's spending into one basket. Pick your state and set your own spending split below, this uses real state-level rates where they exist and scaled estimates elsewhere, weighted by how you actually spend.
Two numbers can both be true, and still not be comparable.
Every inflation comparison on Cost Compass India - cross-state or cross-country - depends on a basket. Baskets weight categories differently. Ignore that, and you're not comparing inflation, you're comparing baskets.
Why India's food weight "fell" - and why it mostly didn't
India's food & beverages weight in the CPI basket looks like it dropped from 45.86% (2012 series) to 36.75% (2024 series, COICOP-2018-aligned). Most of that apparent decline is reclassification - prepared meals and restaurant spending moved into a new "restaurants and accommodation" category. On a like-for-like 2012 classification, the real decline is only to roughly 40.10%.
| Weight | 2012 series | 2024 series (reported) | 2024, like-for-like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food & beverages | 45.86% | 36.75% | ~40.10% |
| Rural food & beverages | - | 23.27% | |
| Urban food & beverages | - | 13.49% | |
For scale: the US food weight is roughly 13% of its CPI basket (BLS). India's food weight is still 2.8–3× the US figure - a raw India-vs-US food inflation comparison is not comparing the same basket at all.
The new 2024 CPI series, structurally
358 weighted items (up from 299) across 12 Divisions / 43 Groups / 92 Classes / 162 Sub-classes. Price collection from 1,465 rural + 1,395 urban markets across 434 towns, plus 12 online markets. MOSPI publishes state-wise CPI weights, not just rural/urban - this is the single fact that makes a real state-by-state comparator possible.
Tool 1 - Weight-adjusted comparison
The raw sector inflation rate is not what moves your cost of living - its contribution to the headline number is. Used throughout every sector chapter on this site.
Tool 2 - Common-basket recalculation
Reweight one state's actual sector-level price changes using another state's basket (or the national average basket) - showing what that state's number would look like if it shopped like its neighbour.
The full basket, division by division
MOSPI's CPI 2024 Expert Group FAQ publishes the complete division-wise weight table - old (2012) structure vs. new (2024) structure, each split rural / urban / combined. This is the real backbone of every weight-adjusted comparison on this site.
| Division | 2012 combined | 2024 combined | 2024 rural | 2024 urban |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food & beverages | 42.62% | 36.75% | 41.98% | 30.25% |
| Pan, tobacco & intoxicants | 2.38% | 2.99% | 3.73% | 2.07% |
| Clothing & footwear | 6.53% | 6.38% | 7.12% | 5.46% |
| Housing, water, electricity, gas & fuels | 16.89% | 17.67% | 11.76% | 25.00% |
| Furnishings & household maintenance | 3.66% | 4.47% | 4.61% | 4.30% |
| Health | 5.90% | 6.10% | 6.76% | 5.28% |
| Transport | 6.39% | 8.80% | 8.64% | 8.99% |
| Information & communication | 3.32% | 3.61% | 3.65% | 3.56% |
| Recreation, sport & culture | 1.55% | 1.52% | 1.36% | 1.71% |
| Education services | 3.51% | 3.33% | 2.38% | 4.52% |
| Restaurants & accommodation | 3.25% | 3.35% | 2.84% | 3.98% |
| Personal care, social protection & misc. | 4.01% | 5.04% | 5.15% | 4.90% |
Note: Transport's weight jumped from 6.39% to 8.80% combined, a bigger relative move than food's decline. Fuel & Energy chapter numbers should be read against this, not against the old 2012 weight. Source: MOSPI CPI 2024 Expert Group FAQ, Q39 to Q40.
Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh across different series
Two different government surveys report these two states and UTs differently, and this site follows each source's own convention.
The monthly CPI release, the source behind every June 2026 figure site-wide, reports Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh individually: Arunachal Pradesh at 2.47%, Ladakh at 4.03%, each separate from Jammu & Kashmir. Every general-inflation figure on this site, including the year slider, draws on this release for these two states.
The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, the basis for the Cost of Living tab, also names both individually: Arunachal Pradesh at ₹5,995 rural / ₹9,832 urban, Ladakh at ₹5,010 / ₹7,533.
For food and fuel sub-indices specifically, MOSPI's annual state series reports Ladakh's figures together with Jammu & Kashmir's, so this site uses that published combined figure for Ladakh directly.
Three high schoolers,
and a lot of government data.
Cost Compass India is an independent student project, not affiliated with any government body or news organisation. Everything on this site is sourced from public official data (MOSPI, RBI, the Union Budget, and more), and every claim is traceable back to where it came from.
What Cost Compass India is for.
Every month the government reports one inflation number for the whole of India. It's a useful figure, but it hides a lot. Two families in different states can live through very different price rises in the same month, and a single national average can't show either of them.
Cost Compass India breaks that number back down. You can see how fast prices are rising in your own state, compare it with any other, and find out what's behind it across the nine things households spend most on, from cooking oil and vegetables to schooling and healthcare. Two tools then turn it into your own numbers: what a month costs for a household like yours, and how fast prices are rising for you based on how you actually spend.
We started it because the cost of living felt very different depending on where you live, and we wanted to see the real numbers behind that. Every figure comes from an official government source, such as MOSPI, the RBI and the Ministry of Agriculture. Where a state doesn't publish something, we say so instead of guessing.
Who we are.
A 12th grade student whose work spans economics, entrepreneurship, and public policy. He is driven by a curiosity to understand how ideas, institutions, and incentives shape the world, and how they can be leveraged to create meaningful change.
A Grade 12 student who loves writing creatively and public speaking, and is endlessly curious about where economics, history, and politics collide. When she's not deep in a research rabbit hole, you'll find her watching F1 or hunting down the next great meal.
A high school 12th grade student who is very passionate about social injustice, affordability, and equality. Also having dabbled in the creative writing field, she has two published works.
- Cost Compass India is built entirely on primary government sources: MOSPI, RBI, the Union Budget, PPAC, UDISE+, and others named throughout the site.
- Every number comes from a named source, and anything estimated is clearly marked, so nothing here pretends to be more precise than it is.
- This is a student project built for public understanding of India's state-by-state cost of living. It is not a government publication and should not be treated as one.
- This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and uses no trackers or advertising pixels.
- The calculators run entirely in your browser. The state you pick, your household size and any income figure you type are never sent anywhere, and are gone the moment you close the tab.
- There are no accounts or logins. Apart from a message you choose to send us, which we use only to reply and never add to a mailing list, share or sell, we collect nothing.
- Everything here is free to read, cite, and share. If you reference a figure, please cite the original government source named beside it rather than this site, and link back here if it helped.
- Figures are reproduced from official publications as released. Government data is periodically revised, and errors in transcription are possible, so verify against the linked source before relying on any number for research, reporting, or a financial decision.
- The calculators produce rough estimates from published averages. They are illustrative, not financial advice, and no outcome is guaranteed.
- Found a mistake? Tell us and we will correct it.
Same crude. Same refinery.
₹13 difference at the pump.
Delhi and Hyderabad buy petrol refined from the same crude basket, often the same coastal refineries. In May 2026 Delhi paid ₹102.12/litre and Hyderabad paid ₹115.69 - a gap of nearly ₹13.6, almost none of it explained by transport cost. It's state VAT.
A four-year freeze, then 2026.
The pump price, unbundled.
What the freeze actually cost.
OMCs absorbed crude volatility into their own margins for roughly four years rather than passing it to pump prices - effectively a hidden, off-budget subsidy. That ended in May 2026. The next four quarters of PPAC RSP data will show whether states quietly raise VAT to capture some of the room OMCs just gave up, or hold rates. This is the chart to track quarterly.
All 36, by retail price.
Three structural levers.
Publish the RSP build-up as a live public API, not a PDF dashboard
PPAC already computes the base price / excise / VAT / dealer-commission split per state. It sits behind a query dashboard, not a bulk feed. A public API would let every outlet do state-fuel-VAT accountability journalism instead of one comparator site doing it manually.
Bring petrol and diesel into GST, at least for the central excise component
Central excise duty is a fixed per-litre levy set independent of GST; state VAT is layered on top of that plus the base price, so VAT taxes a tax. Folding excise into a GST-compatible structure removes the tax-on-tax effect that inflates every state's number by a few percent uniformly.
Use the Ujjwala/DBT rails already built for LPG to smooth petrol-price shocks for the bottom quintile
The direct-benefit-transfer infrastructure for LPG subsidy already reaches the intended households. The same rails, not a blanket VAT cut, are the fiscally efficient way to protect the poorest from a crude-driven price spike like May 2026's.
- PPAC state RSP build-up (ppac.gov.in) - base price, central excise, state VAT, dealer commission by state. FOUND: six metro prices, May 2026.
- MOSPI CPI release, June 2026 - transport division and petrol/diesel/CNG operation sub-index. FOUND.
- State VAT range (14–36%) - FOUND, PPAC 2026.
India grows the oilseeds.
The world sets the price.
India imports roughly 55–60% of the edible oil it consumes - around 16 million tonnes in 2024-25, worth about ₹1.61 lakh crore. A government mission to fix that has spent real money and moved the needle only partway. This is the one sector where the policy story is honestly still unfolding, not concluded.
A ₹11,040 crore bet, four years in.
What it costs, latest figures.
Real money, partial results.
CPO production nearly doubled since NMEO-OP launched - 1.91 to 3.80 lakh tonnes - which sounds like a win until it's measured against the actual target of 11.2 lakh tonnes by 2025-26. The ₹11,040 crore outlay bought real growth, not the growth promised. Meanwhile import volumes (~16 million tonnes) dwarf domestic CPO output by roughly 40-to-1, which is why retail prices still track global palm/soy/sunflower markets far more than any domestic scheme.
Who's actually growing oilseeds.
Gujarat and Rajasthan together account for roughly 40% of national oilseed production - but Tamil Nadu gets nearly double the national yield per hectare (1,998 kg/ha vs. 1,412 kg/ha national average) on a fraction of the area. Yield, not area, is where the real state-level policy lesson sits.
Oilseed yield, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Extend viability-price protection to every current grower before chasing new area
The 2023 price crash hurt Andhra Pradesh and Telangana farmers specifically because they weren't yet covered by NMEO-OP's price-assurance mechanism. Closing that coverage gap for existing growers protects the base the mission already has before spending more to expand it.
Prioritize yield-improvement extension in high-area, low-yield states over area expansion alone
Gujarat and Rajasthan's scale matters, but Tamil Nadu's yield advantage (1,998 vs. 1,412 kg/ha national) shows the bigger near-term gain is agronomic support in existing growing states, not just adding new hectares.
Track import volumes and CPO production on the same public chart, monthly
Right now these live in separate industry bulletins (SEA) and government progress notes (PIB). Put side by side, the ~40-to-1 gap between imports and domestic CPO output would make the "happening to India vs. because of India" distinction from this project's core thesis visible at a glance, specifically for this sector.
- DoCA Price Monitoring System - national retail/wholesale prices, six major oils, July 2026. FOUND.
- NMEO-OP outlay, targets, and progress - PIB press notes, Dec 2025. FOUND.
- State-wise oilseed production, area, and yield, FY2024-25, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, covering 31 of 36 states and UTs. The remaining 5 UTs aren't covered and are left out of the ranking.
The MSP exists everywhere.
The buyer shows up in three states.
Wheat's Minimum Support Price returns farmers 109% over their cost of production - on paper, a strong guarantee. But FCI's actual wheat procurement is overwhelmingly Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and UP. A farmer in Bihar or West Bengal sees the same MSP number and a very different buyer.
Price support, unevenly delivered.
What it costs, latest figures.
Storage built. Unevenly used.
Punjab's FCI storage utilization sits at 94% - among the highest in the country - while Odisha runs at just 50% and Telangana at 59%. That's not simply a capacity problem: it reflects where procurement actually happens. States with strong FCI wheat/paddy procurement (Punjab, Haryana, UP) also run their storage networks hardest; states with weaker procurement reach have spare capacity sitting idle even as their own farmers may lack an assured buyer at MSP.
Same MSP, different reality.
Madhya Pradesh is India's largest producer of total foodgrains among the states with full data on file (46.6 million tonnes, FY2024-25) - larger than Punjab (32.8mt) - yet Punjab still dominates FCI's actual wheat procurement volumes. Production leadership and procurement leadership are not the same thing, and that gap is where the real policy story sits.
Pulses production, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Publish FCI procurement-vs-production ratios by state, every season
Right now you can find state-wise production (Ministry of Agriculture) and state-wise procurement (FCI) in separate datasets. A single published ratio - what share of each state's production actually gets bought at MSP - would make the Punjab/Haryana concentration visible and measurable, not just anecdotal.
Set differentiated MSP return targets by crop, not a single blanket formula
Wheat returns 109% over cost; Safflower returns 50%. If the policy goal is genuinely to de-risk farming across crops, the return-over-cost gap between crops needs an explicit floor, not just an MSP number that looks uniform on a press release.
Expand NAFED/PSS procurement infrastructure specifically in high-production, low-procurement states
Madhya Pradesh's foodgrain output outsizes Punjab's, but its procurement share doesn't reflect that. Directing new procurement centres and storage investment there - rather than deepening capacity in already-saturated Punjab - would close the gap this chapter's "what works" section identifies.
- DoCA Price Monitoring - national retail/wholesale prices, rice/wheat/atta/5 dals, July 2026. FOUND.
- MSP and cost-of-production, RMS 2026-27 - Government of India. FOUND for 6 crops.
- FCI wheat/paddy procurement by state - FOUND but partial: 4 states (Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan) for wheat; 3 states (Punjab, Haryana, UP) for paddy; Madhya Pradesh and others not in the source table.
- State-wise production (rice, wheat, coarse cereals, pulses, total foodgrains), FY2024-25 - Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare. FOUND for 31 of 36 states and UTs; the other 5 aren't covered and are left out of the ranking.
- Storage capacity and FCI utilization by state, 2025 - Monthly Foodgrain Bulletin / Agricultural Statistics at a Glance. FOUND.
Tomatoes up 56%.
Potatoes down 44%.
Same month.
In April 2026, tomato prices rose 55.52% year-on-year while potato prices fell 44.36% - in the same basket, the same month, the same country. Vegetables don't have one story. They have three, moving in different directions at once.
Funds exist. Storage doesn't, evenly.
What it costs, latest figures.
Storage exists. Volatility persists anyway.
Cold storage capacity has grown steadily nationally, and UP's build-out in particular is enormous on paper. Yet tomato and onion prices still swing by double digits year over year. That gap between infrastructure spend and price stability is the real question for this sector - and it suggests the bottleneck isn't storage capacity alone, but how much of that capacity actually reaches small growers at harvest time, which isn't captured in any capacity table.
Production leaders aren't price-stability leaders.
Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh are the three largest vegetable producers by far - UP alone grows more than the next several states combined. But scale of production doesn't automatically mean price stability for consumers or growers; that depends on storage, transport, and market access reaching the actual harvest, not just aggregate state output.
Vegetable production, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Get cold storage built where the harvest actually happens, not just where capacity looks good on paper
Uttar Pradesh's huge cold-storage number doesn't stop tomato and onion prices from swinging wildly. Directing new Operation Greens storage funding specifically to mid-tier producing states with weak capacity - rather than adding to UP's already-large total - should do more to flatten price spikes where they start.
Make the Price Stabilisation Fund buy earlier in the season, not after prices have already spiked
The PSF exists to buy and release stock to smooth prices, but if purchases happen only after a spike is already visible in retail prices, the fund is reacting rather than preventing. Pre-positioning stock ahead of known seasonal risk windows (like the pattern behind April 2026's tomato spike) would make the same ₹10,000 crore work harder.
Publish state-wise TOP retail prices alongside production data, on one public dashboard
Right now, production numbers (Ministry of Agriculture) and price numbers (DoCA) sit in different places, and DoCA's is a query portal, not a downloadable state-wise file. Merging them into one place would let growers, traders, and researchers see production and price side by side - the exact comparison this chapter had to work around instead of make.
- DoCA Price Monitoring - national retail/wholesale TOP prices, July 2026. FOUND.
- TOP price volatility, April 2026 - DoCA / Agmarknet. FOUND.
- State-wise vegetable production, FY2024-25 - Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare. FOUND for 28 states; the other 8 aren't covered and are left out of the ranking.
- State-wise cold storage capacity, 2015-2022 - Agriculture Statistics at a Glance. FOUND.
- NABCONS cold-storage elasticity figure - ASSUMED/anchored, still needs a FOUND primary source (per Part 4 of the master doc).
Almost half of what India
spends on health, families pay
directly, out of pocket.
Out-of-pocket expenditure is roughly 48% of India's total health spending - meaning a serious illness can still mean a real financial shock for a family, government schemes notwithstanding. This chapter tracks the gap between what's promised and what households still pay.
Cards issued. Bills still land at home.
Who's actually paying.
Spending is rising. So is the gap.
State-wise public health expenditure has grown steadily since 2012-13 in every state on file. Uttar Pradesh alone more than doubled its health budget between 2012-13 and 2019-20. But growth in a state's health budget line doesn't automatically mean lower out-of-pocket costs for that state's households, since out-of-pocket expenditure is measured as a national aggregate rather than by state.
Spending leaders, by scale.
Uttar Pradesh spends more in absolute rupees on public health than any other state on file (₹20,250 crore by 2019-20), followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu - but absolute spend tracks population size as much as policy intent. A per-capita view would tell a very different story, and needs population data merged in properly rather than assumed.
Public health spend, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Track out-of-pocket spending by state, not just as one national number
48% is a national average that could hide states doing much better or much worse. Without a state-wise OOP series - which doesn't exist in a ready public dataset today - it's impossible to know whether higher state health budgets (like UP's) are actually translating into lower household bills where it counts.
Convert PM-JAY hospital empanelment into a public claims-settlement-rate dashboard
15,733 empanelled hospitals is a real number, but it measures access on paper, not money actually paid out on a patient's behalf. Publishing claims submitted vs. claims settled, by state, would show whether empanelment is translating into fewer surprise bills.
Raise government health expenditure toward a stated GDP-share target, on a public timeline
At 1.35% of GDP, government spending is the structural reason OOP stays near half of all health spending. A published, dated glide-path toward a higher target - rather than an open-ended aspiration - would let this project (and others) actually track progress instead of citing the same 1.35% figure every year.
- PM-JAY empanelment, ABHA card creation - NHA / PM-JAY Dashboard, Dec 2025 / Jan 2026. FOUND, national.
- Out-of-pocket expenditure, government health expenditure - National Health Accounts, 2021-22. FOUND, national only.
- Health CPI, June 2026 - MOSPI. FOUND, national only.
- State-wise public health expenditure, 2012-13 to 2019-20 - National Health Profile / Central Bureau of Health Intelligence. FOUND, partial (several UTs stop reporting after 2015-16); UTs that stopped reporting are left out of the ranking.
₹42,100 crore for schools.
Himachal Pradesh spends
12× more per student than
Maharashtra.
Himachal Pradesh spends roughly ₹5,229 per student; Maharashtra spends roughly ₹420. Same country, same central scheme, wildly different outcomes on the one number that should matter most: what actually reaches each child.
Budgets rising. Dropouts still real.
What's actually reaching a child.
Money allocated. Not fully spent.
Samagra Shiksha's own average annual utilisation is 86% - meaning roughly 1 in 7 rupees allocated for the scheme, nationally, isn't actually spent in the year it's budgeted for. Layer that against a per-student spend gap of roughly 12× between Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra, and the story isn't just "not enough money" - it's money not reaching the states and students who most need it, even within what's already allocated.
High spend doesn't always mean high enrolment.
Chandigarh, Puducherry, and Goa post the strongest Higher Secondary GER nationally, all compact, highly urbanised UTs. Bihar and Assam sit at the other end, both under 44%. Delhi, at 82.7%, outperforms most full states by a wide margin. The pattern lines up with the per-student spend gap above: dense, well-funded, urban systems retain students through Class 12 far more often than large, rural, lower-spending states do.
Higher Secondary GER, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Set a minimum per-student spending floor states can't fall below, not just a national average target
A roughly 12× gap between Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra under the same central scheme means the current 60:40 (or 90:10) funding formula isn't translating into anything close to equal reach. A floor, not just an average, would directly target the worst-off states first.
Fix the secondary-level leak before expanding higher-education spend further
43 of 68 lakh total dropouts happen at secondary level, and GER falls from 90.9% at Primary to 58.4% by Higher Secondary. Redirecting new Samagra Shiksha rupees specifically toward secondary retention - scholarships, transport, hostel access - addresses the biggest measured leak point directly, rather than spreading new money evenly across levels that aren't losing students at the same rate.
Publish state-wise utilisation rates for Samagra Shiksha funds, not just the national 86% average
If some states are consistently under-spending their allocation while others fully utilise it, that's fixable with process support (faster approvals, capacity building) rather than more money. Right now the 86% figure is only visible nationally - the state breakdown would show exactly where the process, not the budget, is the bottleneck.
- Samagra Shiksha allocation, utilisation, and per-student spend for Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, plus the national figure: UDISE+/Samagra Shiksha reports.
- Union Budget 2026-27, Ministry of Education breakdown: indiabudget.gov.in.
- National GER, NER, and dropout data, 2024-25: UDISE+.
- State-wise Higher Secondary GER, all 36 states and UTs, 2024-25: UDISE+ Table 6.1, Ministry of Education.
Most prices rose 4.4%.
Phones and appliances barely moved.
In June 2026, phones, computers and similar equipment cost just 0.91% more than a year earlier, and household appliances such as fridges, washing machines and ACs cost 1.57% more. Prices overall rose 4.38%. Two things were happening over that year: a GST cut on some big appliances, and a boom in electronics made in India.
A tax cut, and a factory boom.
Cheap to buy, and made here.
More made here. Prices stayed calm.
Electronics output grew 15.8% in 2025-26, and the GST cut lowered the tax on some big appliances by ten percentage points. Over the same year, appliance and phone prices rose far less than prices in general. We can't separate how much of that came from the tax cut, how much from more supply, and how much from global component prices, but all three point the same way.
Phones are the success story.
Phone production rose from ₹18,000 crore in 2014-15 to ₹6.27 lakh crore in 2025-26, and India is now the world's second-largest phone maker. By March 2026 the incentive scheme for large-scale electronics had drawn over ₹20,600 crore of investment and supported ₹11.62 lakh crore of production.
Electronics exports, state by state.
Three practical steps.
Check how much of a tax cut reaches shoppers
No official series tracks whether the September 2025 GST cut showed up in shop prices for the items it covered. A simple before-and-after price check on ACs, TVs and dishwashers would answer it.
Make more of the parts, not just the final product
Most of the growth so far has been assembling phones. The Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme aims to make more components in India, which would cut the import bill behind every device.
Publish appliance prices state by state
MOSPI releases state-level item indices but warns that some rest on thin samples. A reliable state series would show whether cheaper appliances reached smaller towns as well as big cities.
- Household appliances and information & communication equipment prices, June 2026: MOSPI CPI release, group-level table. National.
- GST rate changes effective 22 September 2025: 56th GST Council meeting, as announced via PIB and All India Radio.
- Electronics production, electronics exports, phone production and phone exports, 2025-26: Ministry of Electronics and IT, via PIB, July 2026.
- State-wise electronics exports, FY2024-25: Tamil Nadu Industries Department and Ministry of Commerce trade data, available for Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.
Buying a vehicle got cheaper.
Running one got dearer.
In June 2026, buying a vehicle cost 4.59% less than a year earlier: cars 6.89% less and two-wheelers 3.49% less. Running one, which covers fuel, parts, repairs and servicing, cost 7.35% more. Most of the drop in buying costs traces back to a GST cut in September 2025.
One tax cut, two very different halves of the year.
The sticker price fell.
People waited, then bought.
The cut was announced in early September and took effect on 22 September. Buyers held off in August, then came back in force: car sales rose 16.7% in the second half of 2025-26 after a 1.4% dip in the first. The tax cut, cheaper loans after the RBI's repo rate cuts, and income tax relief all landed in the same year, and the industry body SIAM credits all three.
Cheaper to buy, costlier to run.
The tax cut lowered the one-time price of a car or scooter. It did nothing for the ongoing cost of fuel, parts and servicing, which rose 7.35%, faster than prices overall. For a family deciding whether to buy, the sticker price fell but the cost of owning did not.
Three practical steps.
Look at running costs, not just the sticker price
The monthly cost of owning a vehicle is where state policy matters most, through VAT on petrol and diesel. The Petrol, gas & power chapter shows how widely that varies between states.
Keep an eye on electric vehicles
Electric vehicles stayed at 5% GST. With small petrol cars cut from 28% to 18%, the tax gap between the two shrank from 23 to 13 percentage points, so it's worth tracking whether electric adoption keeps growing.
Publish vehicle prices and registrations side by side
Prices come from MOSPI and sales from the industry. Putting government registration data next to the price index each month would show how buyers respond to tax changes, state by state.
- Purchase of vehicles, cars and jeeps, motorcycles and scooters, and operation of personal transport, June 2026: MOSPI CPI release. National.
- GST rate changes effective 22 September 2025: 56th GST Council meeting, as announced via PIB and All India Radio.
- Vehicle sales for 2025-26 and the first-half and second-half split: SIAM, the vehicle makers' industry body. This is not a government source, but it is the standard record of vehicle sales in India.
- We haven't found an official state-by-state series for vehicle prices, so this chapter is national only.
Personal care inflation:
16.7%. Everything else
in this sector: under 7%.
Personal Care & Miscellaneous is running at 16.72% national inflation, June 2026, by far the highest line in the entire CPI basket, and nowhere close to the next-highest service. One category is doing almost all the work in this sector's price story.
Wages up. One price line running hot.
One line is not like the others.
Wage growth tracks the price story.
Rural non-agricultural wages have risen steadily and meaningfully across every state on file over the past decade. Services like restaurants, personal care, and local transport are labour-intensive, so rising wages are a genuine, defensible part of why prices in this sector rise faster than, say, fuel or housing. That's a different story than Edible Oils or Durables: here, at least part of the inflation is workers actually earning more, not just a passive cost passthrough.
Wages rising fastest where costs run highest.
Haryana and Punjab post among the highest rural non-agricultural wages nationally - and also sit in the higher tier of overall state inflation in this project's dashboard. That's consistent with wage growth being a real contributor to service-sector price levels in those states, not just coincidence.
Rural non-agricultural wages, state by state.
Three structural levers.
Investigate the Personal Care & Miscellaneous spike specifically, before assuming it's just wages
16.72% is far too large to explain by wage growth alone (wages are up in the single-to-low-double digits over a decade, not a year). This group likely includes a volatile item - the site's own June 2026 movers data shows silver and gold jewellery inflation over 100% - inflating the whole category's average. Publishing the item-level breakdown of this group specifically would separate a real cost story from a jewellery-price spike getting miscategorised as "personal care."
Extend state minimum wage notifications to actually track CPI, not lag it
If rural wages are a genuine driver of service prices, keeping minimum wage notifications updated against current CPI - rather than periodic, delayed revisions - protects workers' real income instead of letting inflation erode it between notification cycles.
Publish state-wise services CPI sub-indices, the same way general/food/fuel already are
This project has full 36-state coverage for General, Food & Beverages, and Fuel & Light CPI (Tables 108-110) but nothing equivalent for transport, personal care, or restaurants by state. Extending that same publication standard to services sub-indices would let this chapter build the ranked chart and case studies every other chapter has.
- National CPI sub-indices (transport, personal care, restaurants, etc.), June 2026 - MOSPI Press Release, Annexure I & II. FOUND.
- Rural non-agricultural wages by state, 2014-25 - Labour Bureau, Indian Labour Journal. FOUND for the 19 states the survey covers; the rest are left out of the ranking.
- Railway, telecom, banking, insurance price indices, Q4 2025-26 - various regulatory/sector sources. FOUND, national.
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