India’s retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 5.52 per cent in the month of March.
Separately, the country’s factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), witnessed a contraction of (-)3.6 per cent in February, two separate data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed on Monday.
The retail inflation during the month of February was at 5.03 per cent.
According to a recent Reuters poll, retail inflation was expected to have risen to 5.40 per cent in March from a year earlier.
This is the fourth consecutive month that the CPI data has come within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) upper margin of 6 per cent.
At the end of last month, the government asked the RBI to maintain retail inflation at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side for another five-year period ending March 2026.
Surjitt Sahani
