The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the data for monthly retail inflation on Tuesday, which showed that in the month of March, the Consumer Price Index spiked to 6.95%, the 17-months high, from 6.07% in February and 5.52% in March 2021, on the back of a surge in food prices.
Oil & Fat and vegetables were some of the items that observed the highest rate rise, followed by meat and fish, clothing and footwear, spices, and so on…
Oils and fats inflation spiked to 18.79% in March from 16.4% in February, while vegetable prices saw a mammoth hike to 11.64% last month from 6.13% in February.
Pulses price saw a marginal decline to 2.57% in March from 3.02% in February.
Clothing and footwear rose 9.40% in March from an 8.86% increase a month ago.
In the fuel and light inflation category, prices increased 7.52%, while availing health services became 6.99% costlier.
On a standalone basis, the rural retail inflation in March stood at 7.66%, while in urban areas, the price rose to 6.12%.
Also Read: Indian Households Feel The Pressure Of Inflation, But Still Adjusting…
The Ukraine-Russia war has led to the hike in prices of a category of items, like food, that highly impacts the most impoverished person in a country. Trade deals amongst nations are at a toss, and the already adverse supply chain issue worsened. Due to this, the producers pass on the increased commodity prices and input costs to consumers across goods and services.
Consumer Price Index gauges the change in the prices of a basket of goods and services that are consumed by specific groups of households.
The government gathers retail price data from selected 1,114 urban markets and 1,181 villages across all states to measure inflation, which directly impacts households and economic growth.
It is for the third straight time that the retail price inflation exceeded the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerable band of 4% with +/-2%. All thanks to the rise in food and oil prices.
Last week, the apex bank revised its inflation forecasts for 2022-23 to 5.7% from 4.5% as projected earlier.
The RBI expects the first quarter to witness an average inflation rate of 6.3% before relaxing a little in the second quarter at 5.8%.
Among the States, West Bengal recorded the highest inflation rate at 8.85%, nearly ahead of states like Uttar Pradesh and Assam clocked 8.19% inflation.
States recording less than 8% and more than 7% of price hikes were: Madhya Pradesh (7.89%), Telangana (7.66%), Maharashtra (7.62%), Bihar (7.56%), Haryana (7.43%), Jharkhand (7.42%), Rajasthan (7.61%) and Jammu & Kashmir ( 7.59%).
