Retail inflation falls marginally to 5.30% in August

14 Sep 2021 Evaluate

With easing food prices, retail inflation fell marginally to 5.30 per cent in August. 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. Inflation is within Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) 2 per cent -6 per cent comfort range for a second month. But it has been above the medium-term target of 4 per cent for nearly two years.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its data has showed that the Rural CPI (General) in August 2021 stood at 5.28 per cent as against 5.49 per cent in July. The Urban CPI (General) stood at 5.32 per cent in August as against 5.82 per cent in July. The index value for Rural, Urban and Combined CPI (General) stood at 163.6, 162.2 and 162.9, respectively, in August 2021.

Inflation in the food basket was 3.11 per cent in August compared to 3.96 per cent in the preceding month. Inflation for food products and beverages is at 3.8 percent. But inflation for edible oils has soared by 33 percent, pulses 8.8 percent, eggs by 16.3 percent and meat 9.2 percent. The downward trajectory for food inflation is more due to fall in vegetable inflation which has moved to (-) 11.7 percent.

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.