India’s retail inflation climbed to 7% in August after falling for three consecutive months, government data showed on Tuesday. The price rise indicator was 7.04% in May, 7.01% in June and 6.71% in July.
For eight straight months now, retail inflation has remained above the upper limit mandated by the Reserve Bank of India. The central bank aims to keep inflation in the range of 2% to 6%.
In August, food inflation rose to 7.62% from 6.75% in July. The highest inflation was recorded for spices (14.9%), followed by vegetables at 13.23%, cereals and products at 9.57% and prepared meals and snacks at 7.75%.
Inflation in the fuel and light segment, however, eased off to 10.78% in August from 11.76% in July.
On August 2, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the Centre was not in denial about inflation in India and was taking steps to bring it under 7%.
However, earlier this month, Sitharaman said that lowering inflation cannot be the sole responsibility of the Centre and that states also play a vital role in it. She had said that states which have not reduced fuel prices, have higher inflation that the overall national figures.
The Centre had slashed the excise duty on petrol by Rs 8 per litre and diesel by Rs 6 a litre in May. The move had reduced the price of petrol by upto Rs 9.5 per litre and diesel by Rs 7 a litre. Fuel prices vary in states due to different value-added tax and freight charges.
Meanwhile, India’s industrial growth, measured by the Index of Industrial Production, dropped to 2.4% in July as against 12.3% in June, another set of government data released on Monday showed.
The growth in manufacturing sector dropped to 10.5% in July as compared to 12.5% in June. Mining sector output dropped to -3.3% in July from 7.5% a month before it. Power generation also eased off to to 2.3% in July from 16.4% in June.
In the manufacturing basket, the highest growth was seen in the beverages sector at 46.1%, followed by furniture segment at 47.4% and wearing apparel at 42.9%.
Textiles and pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemical and botanical product sectors saw negative growth at 1.7% and 6.5%.
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