Kerala, Odisha and Manipur face over 6% inflation, even as India’s retail inflation dips below 5%

Inflation is still pinching in 11 of 35 states

Kerala, Odisha and Manipur continued to witness high inflation rates over 6 percent, even as India’s inflation dipped to a five month low of 4.31 percent in January, according to MC analysis of data released by the government on Friday.

Manipur, which has been embroiled in a conflict for 21 months and which witnessed the resignation of its chief minister earlier this week, had the highest inflation in the country at 7.4 percent even as prices eased from 9.4 percent in the previous month.

Kerala had the second highest inflation rate at 6.8 percent, followed by Odisha at 6.1 percent.

But it was not just these three, eight other states had higher inflation than 5 percent, whereas 19 of 35 had higher rates than the national average.

Among the major ones, Chhattisgarh had 5.8 percent inflation in January, while Bihar and Haryana were at 5.1 percent, and Karnataka was at 5 percent.

From Panjim to Thiruvananthapuram

Another unique aspect of January inflation was that while most states witnessed a decline in inflation in the month, Goa and Kerala witnessed a rise in inflation in January.

In Goa, inflation rose from 4.4 percent in the previous month to 4.7 percent, while in Kerala it rose to a near five year high of 6.8 percent from 6.4 percent in the previous month.

For the country, inflation had declined nearly a percentage point from 5.22 percent to 4.31 percent in January.

The Reserve Bank of India had cut rates in anticipation of a decline in inflation.

RBI’s forecast indicate that inflation is likely to decline further, paving the way for the Reserve Bank to institute more cuts.

The central bank expects inflation to decline to 4.2 percent in the coming fiscal, down from 4.8 percent expected for FY25.