Team News Riveting
New Delhi, September 13
Retail inflation came down marginally to 5.3 per cent in August mainly due to easing food prices, an official data released on Monday underlined.
The retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 5.59 per cent in July and 6.69 per cent in August 2020, according to the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO). The inflation in the food basket was 3.11 per cent in August compared to 3.96 per cent in the preceding month.
The Price data are collected from representative and selected 1114 urban Markets and 1181 villages covering all States/UTs through personal visits by field staff of Field Operations Division of NSO, MoSPI on a weekly roster. During the month of August 2021, NSO collected prices from 99.7 per cent villages and 98.6 per cent urban Markets while the Market-wise prices reported therein were 87.1 per cent for rural and 87.4 per cent for urban.
The Reserve Bank had kept the key interest rate unchanged in its monetary policy review in August. It focuses mainly on the CPI while deciding its bi-monthly monetary policy.
The RBI has projected the CPI inflation at 5.7 per cent during 2021-22 — 5.9 per cent in the second quarter, 5.3 per cent in third, and 5.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of the fiscal, with risks broadly balanced. CPI inflation for Q1 2022-23 is projected at 5.1 per cent.
