Why it is in the news
On 6 October 2026, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released an approach paper on expanding the scope and coverage of the Index of Services Production (ISP). It proposes adding education, human health and residential care and public administration and defence to the index, measured partly through UPI transaction data classified by merchant category codes and government salary and grant data from the Public Financial Management System (PFMS). Comments are invited till 16 October 2026.
The exam angle
Issue: India's dominant sector has lacked a timely output measure; MoSPI is building one from tax, payments and payroll data rather than surveys.