The Group recommended allowing banks to become direct trading-cum-clearing members of the currency futures exchanges subject to prudential criteria such as minimum net worth, CRAR, profitability, etc. Accepting these recommendations and in order to enable the market participants to manage their currency risk better, currency futures have been introduced in August 2008. Initially, only US dollar-Indian rupee contracts were allowed.
While the WPI does not cover prices of services, CPIs are meant to reflect the cost of living conditions for a homogeneous group of consumers based on retail prices. Among the four measures of CPI, the CPI for Industrial workers (IW) has a broader coverage than the others – the CPI for agricultural labourers (AL), rural labourers (RL) and urban non-manual employees (UNME).