India's retail inflation rate rises marginally to 4.48% in October

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India’s retail inflation rate, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 4.48 percent in the month of October 2021, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) revealed on November 12.

There was a marginal increase in retail inflation in October due to an uptick in food prices, government data showed.

The CPI-based inflation in September 2021 was at 4.35 percent and in October 2020 it was 7.61 percent.

For the fourth month in a row, CPI has been below the Reserve Bank of India’s six percent margin. The Government of India had told RBI to maintain a retail inflation rate at four percent with an upper and lower margin of two percent on either side for five years, till March 2026.

Notably, the central bank factors in CPI data while preparing its bi-monthly fiscal policy. In September, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI had decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at four percent for the eighth time in a row.

According to the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), inflation in the food basket rose to 0.85 percent in October, compared to 0.68 percent in the preceding month.

The RBI had projected CPI inflation at 5.3 percent for 2021-22 -- 5.1 percent in the second quarter, 4.5 percent in third, 5.8 percent in the last quarter of the fiscal, with risks broadly balanced. The retail inflation during the April-June period of 2022-23 is projected at 5.2 percent.