Bhav

bhāv — the going rate. What a trader answers when you ask what something costs today.

A daily price index built from what Indian grocers actually charge — and an open record of the places where the same product, on the same day, is not the same price.

collecting
since 2026-08-29 · day 27
rebuilt 24 Sep 2026, 18:58 IST
5,154,220
Price observations
across 27 day(s)
244,626
Distinct SKUs
41,932 canonical products
6
Retailers
240 cities
415,206
Official mandi quotes
3,054 markets · 28 states
The Bhav Index · a price index from shop prices

What is actually happening to prices?

Day 27 of collection. The index stands at 102.46, up 2.46 points since the first day; food alone is at 103.50. Over this many days that is measurement noise, not inflation — the number is here so the method can be checked while the history is short.

Built like the official CPI — same NSO sub-groups, same published weights, matched-model geometric-mean links, chained daily — but from live shop prices, not hand-collected quotations.

102.46
Bhav Index
base 100 · day 27
103.50
Food and beverages
45.9% of the CPI basket
67%
Held yesterday's price exactly
7,059 of 21,512 moved · 3,147 up, 3,912 down
41,495
Products priced
66% of the CPI basket by weight · 3,410 outside it

Most shelf prices don’t move day to day. The share that held yesterday’s price exactly is above — which is why an index over thousands of products sits near 100 while thousands of prices move.

The index since day one base 100 = 2026-08-29 · chained daily
All itemsFood and beverages
10010110210310408-2909-0109-0409-0709-1009-1309-1609-1909-2209-24All items 102.5Food and beverages 103.5
2026-08-29
All items100.00
Food and beverages100.00
2026-08-30
All items100.24
Food and beverages100.35
2026-08-31
All items100.25
Food and beverages100.35
2026-09-01
All items101.44
Food and beverages102.13
2026-09-02
All items101.92
Food and beverages102.77
2026-09-03
All items101.97
Food and beverages102.89
2026-09-04
All items101.89
Food and beverages102.78
2026-09-05
All items101.85
Food and beverages102.74
2026-09-06
All items101.84
Food and beverages102.73
2026-09-07
All items101.98
Food and beverages102.81
2026-09-08
All items102.22
Food and beverages103.05
2026-09-09
All items102.20
Food and beverages103.03
2026-09-10
All items102.17
Food and beverages102.98
2026-09-11
All items102.34
Food and beverages103.20
2026-09-12
All items102.16
Food and beverages103.19
2026-09-13
All items102.22
Food and beverages103.22
2026-09-14
All items102.30
Food and beverages103.24
2026-09-15
All items102.34
Food and beverages103.25
2026-09-16
All items102.44
Food and beverages103.39
2026-09-17
All items102.52
Food and beverages103.42
2026-09-18
All items102.52
Food and beverages103.47
2026-09-19
All items102.41
Food and beverages103.31
2026-09-20
All items102.38
Food and beverages103.31
2026-09-21
All items102.44
Food and beverages103.33
2026-09-22
All items102.48
Food and beverages103.45
2026-09-23
All items102.55
Food and beverages103.49
2026-09-24
All items102.46
Food and beverages103.50
How much of the official basket we can see by CPI weight
Food 45.9%
Other goods 20.1%
Not on any grocery site 34.0%
Food and beverages — nearly all of it priced herePersonal care, household, health, clothingHousing, fuel and light, transport, education, recreation, pan and tobacco
Sub-group by sub-group index level and how many products carried it
Sub-groupCPI weightIndexChangeProducts matchedProducts priced
fruits2.89%140.13+40.138501,745
sugar confectionery1.36%103.62+3.629702,198
vegetables6.04%102.61+2.615491,010
egg0.43%101.74+1.74170334
oils fats3.56%101.20+1.201,0431,634
prepared snacks5.55%100.97+0.973,0016,554
cereals9.67%100.82+0.821,9873,464
beverages nonalc1.26%100.71+0.711,7653,241
spices2.50%100.62+0.621,2662,137
milk products6.61%100.61+0.611,2742,604
personal care3.89%100.56+0.563,3557,693
household goods3.80%100.51+0.511,6773,456
meat fish3.61%99.56-0.44190747
pulses2.38%100.26+0.26532910
health5.89%99.75-0.25277560
clothing footwear6.53%99.84-0.164496

Not the CPI: it prices what a grocery site sells — 66% of the official basket by weight. Rent, fuel, fares and fees have no price tag we can read, and are excluded, not guessed.

Question 1 · price dispersion

Does one chain charge different prices in different cities?

Yes. Of 6,242 products Blinkit stocks in two or more of 77 cities, most vary little between them — but 561 swing by over 25% for the same pack, same day.

Blinkit prices per city across 77 cities — the widest lens (DMart reaches ten). Each product is compared only against itself via its canonical key; loose produce and coupon/mis-keyed prices are removed. National-catalogue apps can’t disperse, so they’re left out.

1.9%
Median city gap
cheapest to dearest
23.7%
90th percentile
one in ten is at least this
2,775
Priced identically
everywhere it is stocked
561
Vary over 25%
same SKU, same day
How big is the gap? products by size of city-to-city spread
identical: 2,775 productsidentical2,775 productsunder 5%: 993 productsunder 5%993 products5-10%: 825 products5-10%825 products10-25%: 1,068 products10-25%1,068 products25-50%: 420 products25-50%420 productsover 50%: 161 productsover 50%161 products

Most of the shelf doesn’t move: the typical product is priced identically in every city that stocks it. The gap lives in a minority of products — the ones listed below.

The products a city actually changes the price of seen in 30+ cities · open a row to see every city's price
ProductCitiesCheapestDearestGap

A snapshot, not a trend. Latest price per product per city, pack held constant; coupon and mis-keyed prices filtered. Promotional timing isn’t — a city mid-offer looks cheap.

Question 2 · the MRP anomaly

Is printed MRP actually a single price?

Apparently not. Of 4,500 products priced in three or more cities, 28.3% show more than one printed MRP — a figure that is supposed to be identical everywhere in the country.

MRP is the single national ceiling printed on the pack. The same SKU, same retailer, same day should report the same MRP in every city.

28.3%
of products show more than one MRP
1,273 of 4,500 checked
8.6%
Median gap where they differ
ProductCitiesDistinct MRPsLowHighGap
Nidhi Omega Non Stick Set (Golden) - Set Of 4 : 1 Unit
1 U
421,690.003,700.00118.9%
Caresmith Bloom Face & Body Hair Trimmer - Green :1 Unit
1 U
421,375.002,300.0067.3%
Butterfly Wave Stainless Steel Glass Top Gas Stove With
1 U
429,120.009,999.009.6%
Bergner Tripro Triply Happy Set Of Tea Pan & Tope With L
1 U
422,545.003,270.0028.5%
Prov Select Roasted & Salted Pistachios : 400 g
400 g
103759.001,469.0093.5%
Joyo Knit Laundry Basket (Chocolate Dark Brown) - 56 L :
1 U
1021,638.002,097.0028.0%
Butterfly Hippo Stainless Steel Gas Stove - 2 Burners :
1 U
623,429.003,799.0010.8%
Tata Tea Agni : 1 kg
1 kg
103220.00560.00154.5%
Joyo Better Home Tuff Patla - Big (Grey) : 1 Unit
1 U
1021,216.001,556.0028.0%
Butterfly Stainless Outer Lid Steel Cooker (Curve) - 3 L
3 L
523,450.003,765.009.1%
Gala Quick Spin Mop Bucket With Easy Wheels & Free Mop R
1 U
1031,799.002,099.0016.7%
Prov Select Cashew (Jidi Pappu / Jeedi Pappu) : 1 kg
1 kg
521,699.001,989.0017.1%
Fortune Sunlite Refined Sunflower Oil : 13 kg
13 kg
723,300.003,550.007.6%
Gala Turbo Spin Mop and Bucket With Free Mop Refill : 1
1 U
1022,600.002,849.009.6%
Neutrogena Rainbath Shower & Bath Gel : 473 ml
473 ml
831,090.001,320.0021.1%
Beezy Aluminium Puri Press Roti Maker Papad & Khakhra Ma
1 U
1031,102.001,322.0020.0%
Mamy Poko Pants Extra Absorb - Small : 74 U
74 U
521,030.001,249.0021.3%
Joyo Plastic Bathroom Set (Blue) - Set of 5 : 1 Unit
1 U
52759.00972.0028.1%
Morde Milk Compound (CO M21 ) : 400 g
400 g
42265.00475.0079.2%
Varna Stainless Steel Lunch Box (Green) - Set of 5 : 1 U
1 U
422,790.002,999.007.5%

An observation, not a finding. The boring explanation — regional pack variants sharing one SKU id — hasn’t been ruled out yet.

Question 3 · the wholesale floor

What sits between the mandi and the app?

A great deal, and it is not uniform. 415,206 official quotes from 3,054 mandis across 28 states give the wholesale floor. The retail markup below is computed per kilogram using the canonical key, so it grows as normalisation runs.

Agmarknet publishes, daily and per state, what commodities actually clear for at agricultural markets — the one independent national price here. Quoted per quintal; shown per kilogram.

3,054
Mandis reporting
28 states
344
Commodities
wholesale, per quintal
415,206
Quotes banked
latest 2026-09-24
One commodity, one day, many markets low · median · high, ₹/kg
₹0₹58₹115₹172₹230Tomato: ₹6.50 to ₹62.00 per kg, median ₹26.00 across 481 quotesTomato₹26₹6₹62Brinjal: ₹3.30 to ₹75.00 per kg, median ₹30.00 across 471 quotesBrinjal₹30₹3₹75Onion: ₹2.50 to ₹116.00 per kg, median ₹50.75 across 424 quotesOnion₹51₹2₹116Potato: ₹2.40 to ₹64.00 per kg, median ₹15.00 across 423 quotesPotato₹15₹2₹64Green Chilli: ₹7.50 to ₹230.00 per kg, median ₹45.00 across 394 quotesGreen Chilli₹45₹8₹230Bhindi(Ladies Finger): ₹3.00 to ₹72.00 per kg, median ₹32.00 across 387 quotesBhindi(Ladies Finger)₹32₹3₹72Bottle gourd: ₹4.00 to ₹57.00 per kg, median ₹18.00 across 340 quotesBottle gourd₹18₹4₹57Bitter gourd: ₹5.50 to ₹115.00 per kg, median ₹44.00 across 335 quotesBitter gourd₹44₹6₹115Banana: ₹7.50 to ₹110.00 per kg, median ₹45.00 across 334 quotesBanana₹45₹8₹110Cabbage: ₹3.10 to ₹74.40 per kg, median ₹27.00 across 312 quotesCabbage₹27₹3₹74Cauliflower: ₹2.40 to ₹82.00 per kg, median ₹32.25 across 298 quotesCauliflower₹32₹2₹82Pumpkin: ₹2.50 to ₹38.00 per kg, median ₹18.00 across 293 quotesPumpkin₹18₹2₹38Cucumbar(Kheera): ₹1.00 to ₹90.00 per kg, median ₹30.00 across 271 quotesCucumbar(Kheera)₹30₹1₹90Raddish: ₹5.00 to ₹52.50 per kg, median ₹27.50 across 246 quotesRaddish₹28₹5₹52

Wholesale isn’t one price either — grade, variety, geography and the day’s arrivals.

Retail against wholesale per kilogram, via the canonical key
Canonical productMandi commodityMandi ₹/kgRetail ₹/kgMarkupBasis
cauliflowercauliflower32.25173.33+437%7 SKUs · 298 quotes
cabbagecabbage27.00136.00+404%11 SKUs · 312 quotes
papayapapaya35.00118.67+239%3 SKUs · 197 quotes
bananabanana45.00131.00+191%4 SKUs · 334 quotes
ricerice36.0098.55+174%90 SKUs · 69 quotes
pumpkinpumpkin18.0045.00+150%3 SKUs · 293 quotes
brinjalbrinjal30.0070.00+133%32 SKUs · 471 quotes
bitter gourdbitter gourd44.0098.00+123%5 SKUs · 335 quotes
green chilligreen chilli45.0096.00+113%6 SKUs · 394 quotes
wheatwheat26.0054.40+109%5 SKUs · 244 quotes
garlicgarlic167.50315.00+88%10 SKUs · 154 quotes
potatopotato15.0026.00+73%72 SKUs · 423 quotes
oniononion50.7580.00+58%4 SKUs · 424 quotes
carrotcarrot45.0065.00+44%4 SKUs · 225 quotes
beetrootbeetroot47.5050.00+5%6 SKUs · 199 quotes

Not a margin, and not like-for-like everywhere. The gap pays for transport, cold chain, wastage, packaging and rent. It holds where the good is the same object on both sides (onion, banana, carrot); where processing sits between — grain vs atta, loose vs washed-and-packed spinach — it’s a loose upper bound.

Where the official data comes from quotes by state
Tamil Nadu: 180,124Tamil Nadu180,124Uttar Pradesh: 35,946Uttar Pradesh35,946Madhya Pradesh: 27,501Madhya Pradesh27,501Keralam: 23,094Keralam23,094Maharashtra: 22,907Maharashtra22,907Punjab: 17,653Punjab17,653Gujarat: 14,112Gujarat14,112Haryana: 12,684Haryana12,684Karnataka: 10,736Karnataka10,736Himachal Pradesh: 10,435Himachal Pradesh10,435Telangana: 10,088Telangana10,088West Bengal: 8,563West Bengal8,563Odisha: 7,273Odisha7,273Andhra Pradesh: 7,009Andhra Pradesh7,009Rajasthan: 6,710Rajasthan6,710Tripura: 3,785Tripura3,785
Cheapest app for fruit & vegetables per kilo · times each app held the lowest rate
BigBasket: 82 itemsBigBasket82 itemsInstamart: 34 itemsInstamart34 itemsDMart: 23 itemsDMart23 itemsBB Now: 15 itemsBB Now15 itemsBlinkit: 6 itemsBlinkit6 items

BigBasket most often. On loose fruit and vegetables — priced per kilo, kept apart from packaged goods — the cheapest app is rarely the fastest one.

Produce, item by item typical rate and the cheapest → dearest span across apps
ItemAppsCheapestTypical ₹Cheapest–dearest
Carrot
5BB Now72.00/kg₹40.00–₹96.00
Apple
5BigBasket312.00/kg₹200.00–₹324.00
Beetroot
5DMart64.00/kg₹48.00–₹76.00
Cucumber
5DMart68.00/kg₹52.00–₹81.00
Onion
5BB Now74.00/kg₹65.00–₹88.33
Banana
5DMart97.00/kg₹88.00–₹119.20
Tomato
5BigBasket47.20/kg₹46.00–₹58.00
Lemon
4BigBasket385.00/kg₹320.00–₹915.00
Ginger
4BigBasket277.50/kg₹155.00–₹442.50
Chilli
4BigBasket118.00/kg₹68.00–₹190.00
Sambhar Onion
4BB Now197.00/kg₹107.00–₹295.00
Yam
4BigBasket169.00/kg₹104.00–₹232.00
Orange
4BigBasket157.75/kg₹120.00–₹260.00
Cauliflower
4DMart42.63/piece₹28.00–₹58.50
Wood Apple
4BB Now23.00/piece₹18.40–₹38.00
French Bean
4BigBasket135.00/kg₹106.80–₹211.80
Okra
4BigBasket50.00/kg₹36.50–₹67.00
Grape
4Blinkit397.00/kg₹298.00–₹524.00
Banana Flower
4Instamart27.25/piece₹25.00–₹43.00
Cluster Bean
4Instamart109.70/kg₹96.00–₹156.00
Sweet Potato
4BigBasket85.50/kg₹69.50–₹112.00
Baby Potato
4Instamart46.00/kg₹38.00–₹58.00
Kiwi
4DMart52.37/piece₹46.33–₹67.00
Ber
4BigBasket146.00/kg₹112.50–₹156.00

Loose produce varies by grade and by the day's arrivals, so read this as the going rate, not a like-for-like verdict.

Every mandi quote, searchable latest day · sort or filter any column
CommodityVarietyMarketState₹ / kg
Question 4 · who's actually cheapest

Which app really has the lowest price?

Usually DMart. Of 2,450 branded products sold on two or more apps and priced per unit, DMart holds the lowest price on 881 of them. The two ten-minute apps win 779 between them against the warehouse and next-day apps' 1,616 — speed is not where the discount is.

Every branded product one app shares with another, priced per unit — ₹ per kilo, litre or piece — so a 500 g pack and a 1 kg pack line up and a single can is never set against a case. Matched on a computed canonical key, never a title.

2,450
Products on 2+ apps
compared per unit
13.3%
Median per-unit gap
cheapest to dearest
DMart
Cheapest most often
881 of 2,450 products
Times each app was the cheapest one vote per product · per-unit price
DMart: 881 productsDMart881 productsBigBasket: 574 productsBigBasket574 productsInstamart: 404 productsInstamart404 productsBlinkit: 375 productsBlinkit375 productsJioMart: 161 productsJioMart161 productsBB Now: 55 productsBB Now55 products
The same product, per unit, across apps on 3+ apps · cheapest → dearest per-unit price
ProductAppsCheapest₹/unitDearest ₹/unitGap
thums up soft drink
5DMart43.47/L66.00/L51.8%
bajaj hair oil · almond drops
5JioMart624.00/L936.84/L50.1%
vim dishwash bar · lemon
5BB Now76.92/kg111.84/kg45.4%
saffola masala oats · classic
5BigBasket367.20/kg526.32/kg43.3%
epigamia greek yogurt · natural
5DMart495.00/kg705.88/kg42.6%
heritage curd · total
5JioMart84.00/kg113.00/kg34.5%
aashirvaad atta · multigrain
5BigBasket58.80/kg79.00/kg34.4%
amul curd · masti
5BigBasket93.42/kg125.00/kg33.8%
pillsbury wheat atta · chakki fresh
5Blinkit40.50/kg52.50/kg29.6%
catch coriander powder
5JioMart300.00/kg380.00/kg26.7%
maggi instant noodles · masala
5BigBasket173.81/kg214.29/kg23.3%
surf excel liquid detergent · matic top load
5BigBasket133.33/kg162.00/kg21.5%
amul cheese · slices
5Instamart586.67/kg710.00/kg21.0%
mysore sandal soap · sandal
5DMart458.67/kg552.22/kg20.4%
quaker oats · multigrain
5BB Now225.00/kg261.67/kg16.3%
everest coriander powder
5DMart370.00/kg430.00/kg16.2%
gold winner sunflower oil · refined gold
5Blinkit172.00/L199.06/L15.7%
amul milk · taaza toned
5Blinkit67.50/L77.00/L14.1%
chandrika soap · ayurvedic
5Instamart346.67/kg392.00/kg13.1%
sunpure sunflower oil · refined
5BigBasket181.90/L198.88/L9.3%
gemini sunflower oil · refined
5Instamart227.50/kg248.75/kg9.3%
fortune sunflower oil · sunlite refined
5DMart215.92/kg232.50/kg7.7%
maggi instant noodles · double masala
5BB Now197.37/kg210.53/kg6.7%
amul butter · unsalted
5DMart609.12/kg645.00/kg5.9%
sprite soft drink
4JioMart45.33/L80.00/L76.5%
milky mist curd
4BigBasket101.00/kg177.50/kg75.7%
whisper sanitary pads · choice nights xxl
4BigBasket5.03/piece8.35/piece66.2%
pampers diapers · active baby
4BigBasket11.90/piece19.67/piece65.3%
true elements oats · steel cut
4DMart198.00/kg321.00/kg62.1%
milky mist paneer
4BigBasket360.00/kg580.00/kg61.1%
Every matched product open a row to check the per-unit price agrees
Canonical productShopsCheapestDearestGap
The series

What this becomes if it keeps running

Every finding above is true of a single day. The series is the one thing a day can’t produce — no archive of Indian grocery prices exists to download — so it’s collected forward, whether or not anyone is reading.

Day 27 of ~30. Each city's basket median becomes a trend line here. Until then these are single points — the series is the whole asset and it can only be built forward, one day at a time.
Ahmedabadmedian basket price
Bengalurumedian basket price
Bhopalmedian basket price
Hyderabadmedian basket price
Indoremedian basket price
Mumbaimedian basket price
Collection health

What is running, and whether it worked

A gap in collection is a gap in the series and cannot be backfilled, so it belongs on the page rather than in a log.

Sources
RetailerObservationsSKUsCitiesLast seen
blinkit2,073,7098,8717724 Sep 01:50
instamart1,528,070208,0936224 Sep 02:54
dmart1,099,27510,0521024 Sep 10:29
bigbasket327,2526,414national24 Sep 11:43
bbnow89,4729,4453624 Sep 15:42
jiomart36,4421,751national24 Sep 07:09
Recent sweeps newest first
SourceStartedStatusEgressOKFailed
bbnow24 Sep 15:07dry runmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 15:06dry runmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 15:06dry runmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 15:05dry runmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 15:05dry runmumbai-socks00
agmarknet24 Sep 14:58okdirect10
bbnow24 Sep 13:46retrymumbai-socks220
bbnow24 Sep 13:44failedmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 13:36failedmumbai-socks00
bbnow24 Sep 13:07partialmumbai-socks41
bbnow24 Sep 12:49partialmumbai-socks411
bbnow24 Sep 12:18partialmumbai-socks42
bbnow24 Sep 12:13failedmumbai-socks00
bigbasket24 Sep 11:00okmumbai-socks900
Method

What is not true about this

Four things worth knowing before anyone quotes a number from this page.

The city sample is not India

Quick-commerce reaches ~86 cities; DMart ten, and western/central/southern — no North, East, Tamil Nadu or Kerala. The mandi data is national; the retail footprint isn’t uniform.

Coverage is a sample, not a census

BigBasket's robots.txt caps listing pages at nine per category, so a category holding 6,867 products contributes at most 432. JioMart's first-party grocery is a few hundred lines, not a few thousand, and its marketplace listings are excluded entirely.

Like is compared with like, where it can be

City comparisons fold a product’s per-city ids onto one canonical key and compare it only against itself. Cross-retailer comparisons lean on that derived key — the weakest link here.

This sits on someone else's sufferance

Three of six retailers approached block us outright; the rest could add a CAPTCHA tomorrow with no notice. That is unfixable, and it is why the findings here are cross-sectional: a block ends the series, but it cannot unmake a day already banked.

Prices are what an anonymous visitor is shown and may differ from what any individual shopper is offered.