CPI accelerates for third successive month in February at 5.37%

13 Mar 2015 Evaluate

Consumer price inflation (CPI) with changed base year from 2010 to 2012 inched up in February for third successive month at 5.37% as compared to 5.1% in January on account of higher food prices.

The General Indices (Provisional) for the month of February 2015 for Rural, Urban and Combined stood at 120.6, 118.7 and 119.7, respectively. The corresponding provisional inflation rates for rural and urban areas for the month under review stood at 5.79% and 4.95% as compared to 5.34% and 4.96% respectively in the previous month.

Meanwhile, the CFPI for Rural, Urban and Combined for the same month stood 122.4, 123.0 and 122.6 respectively and the corresponding provisional inflation rates for rural and urban areas for the index for the month under review stood at 6.34% and 7.52% as compared to 5.78% and 7.05% respectively in the previous month.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation with the new year has revised the Base Year of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from 2010=100 to 2012=100. In this revised series, many methodological changes have been incorporated, in order to make the indices more robust. As per the new series, higher weight has been assigned to education and health services, while the weight of food and fuel items was reworked and house rent index data has been widened.

Notably, despite the acceleration of inflation in February, it is still below Reserve Bank of India or RBI's target of 6 per cent for January 2016, which further cements the case of RBI slashing rates in its upcoming monetary policy in April, 2015. However, there are chances of potential delay of rate cut in June as the CPI data for March is likely to increase further on the back of country-wide unseasonal rains that impacted Rabi crops.

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