New Delhi: Retail inflation declined to an 18-month low of 4.7 per cent in April mainly due to falling prices of vegetables, oils and fats, and came closer to Reserve Bank's target of 4 per cent, showed government data released Friday.
It was for the second month in a row that Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation remained within the RBI's comfort zone of below 6 per cent. The government has tasked the central bank to ensure retail inflation remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.
The retail inflation was 5.66 per cent in March 2023 and 7.79 per cent in the year-ago period. Later month's inflation is the lowest reading since October 2021, when it stood at 4.48 per cent.
According to the National Statistical Office, the inflation in the food basket was 3.84 per cent in April, as against 4.79 per cent in March and 8.31 per cent in the year-ago period. The food basket accounts for nearly half of the CPI.
Retail inflation rose from 5.7 per cent in December 2022 to 6.4 per cent in February 2023 on the back of higher prices of cereals, milk and fruits and slower deflation in vegetable prices.
As per the latest NSO data, prices of 'oil and fats' declined by 12.33 per cent, followed by vegetables (6.5 per cent), and 'meat and fish (1.23 per cent) during April on an annual basis.
On the other hand, spices, cereals and products, and 'milk and milk products' became dearer. The NSO data further showed the retail inflation in the rural areas during April was 4.68 per cent and 4.85 per cent in urban areas.
The price data were collected from selected 1,114 urban markets and 1,181 villages covering all states/UTs through personal visits by field staff of Field Operations Division of NSO, an official release said.
Meanwhile, India’s industrial production growth slipped to five-month low of 1.1 per cent in March from 5.8 per cent in February 2023, mainly due to poor performance of power and manufacturing sectors, according to official data released on Friday.
The previous lowest level of growth was recorded in October 2022 at a contraction of 4.1 per cent.
The factory output growth measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) stood at 2.2 per cent in March 2022.
As per the IIP data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the manufacturing sector’s output grew 0.5 per cent in March 2023 as against 1.4 per cent a year ago.
Power generation declined by 1.6 per cent in March 2023 against a growth of 6.1 per cent.
Mining output rose by 6.8 per cent during the month under review compared to a growth of 3.9 in the year-ago period.
As per use-based classification, the capital goods segment recorded a growth of 8.1 per cent in March against a growth of 2.4 per cent a year ago.
Consumer durables output during the month declined by 8.4 per cent against a contraction of 3.1 per cent a year ago.
Consumer non-durable goods output too declined by 3.1 per cent against a contraction of 4.4 per cent earlier.
Infrastructure/construction goods posted a growth of 5.4 per cent compared to a 6.7 per cent expansion in the same period a year ago.
The data also showed that the output of primary goods logged 3.3 per cent growth in the month against 5.7 per cent in the year-ago period.
The intermediate goods output in March grew by 1 per cent compared to a growth of 1.8 per cent during the corresponding month last year.
For fiscal 2022-23, the growth in IIP works out to be 5.1 per cent, down from 11.4 per cent in the preceding year.