Correct Option
Statement 2 is correct. The Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) typically assigns a higher weight to food articles in its basket compared to the Wholesale Price Index (WPI). For instance, CPI-IW has historically given approximately 39% weight to food items, whereas the WPI (which includes food articles and manufactured food products) has a lower combined weight, around 24.4% in its basket. This difference reflects the distinct purposes and coverage of these indices.
Statement 1 is incorrect. While the WPI is currently released on a monthly basis for all categories (with the base year 2011-12), historically, this was not always the case. Until 2009, the WPI for certain categories, specifically Primary Articles and Fuel, was released on a weekly basis. The shift to a purely monthly release for all categories occurred subsequently. Therefore, the WPI in India was not exclusively available on a monthly basis throughout its history.
Incorrect Options
Options (a), (c), and (d) are incorrect because they either include the erroneous assumption that WPI has always been available only on a monthly basis or incorrectly assess the comparative weightage of food articles between WPI and CPI-IW.