Consumer inflation at 6.69% in August, marginally lower than July figures

Retail inflation in August remained at 6.69%, government data released on Monday showed. In July, consumer price inflation had touched 6.73%. The improvement in the overall inflation reading was because of marginally easing food prices coupled with the gradual lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions.

However, it is above the Reserve Bank of India’s range of 4% to 6%. The central bank had in its Monetary Policy Review last month kept interest rates unchanged, saying that there would be a rise in wholesale prices. India’s wholesale prices rose 0.16% in August. The increase in prices was due to food items and manufactured items growing costlier.

According to the CPI data, food inflation in August fell marginally to 9.05% from 9.27% the previous month. “During the month of August 2020, NSO [National Statistics Office] collected prices from 96.1% villages and 96.4% urban markets while the market-wise numbers of prices reported therein were 78.6% for rural and 84.4% for urban as compared to 87.9% for rural and 93.9% for urban in February 2020,” said the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.