In April last year, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation could not release data on the consumer price index. Given the country was under lockdown from end-March to mid-April 2020, the ministry could not gather responses on price changes in the basket of commodities.

       Later, it released CPI for these months based on imputed values. While the April period was just an aberration and the ministry has since been publishing CPI data every month, the index has not been adjusted to reflect the changes in consumption patterns during the pandemic. In contrast, in the US, the ...