New Delhi | Jagran Business Desk: India’s retail inflation – which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)- climbed to 6.95 per cent in March against 6.07 in February due to costlier food items, said the central government on Tuesday.
“The Price data are collected from selected 1114 urban Markets and 1181 villages covering all States/UTs through personal visits by field staff of Field Operations Division of NSO, MoSPI on a weekly roster,” the government while releasing the data.
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“During the month of March 2022, NSO collected prices from 99.9 per cent villages and 98.3 per cent urban Markets while the Market-wise prices reported therein were 90.2 per cent for rural and 93.2 per cent for urban,” it added.
This is for the third straight month when the CPI data has remained above the Reserve Bank of India’s upper margin of 6 per cent. RBI, which mainly factors in the retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, has been tasked by the government to keep the inflation between 2 and 6 per cent.
Last week, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said that the central bank has decided to keep the repo rate and reverse repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent and 3.35 per cent respectively, maintaining its accommodative stance.
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This was for the 11th time in a row when the RBI kept its lending rates unchanged. It had last revised its policy repo rate or the short-term lending rate on May 22, 2020, in an off-policy cycle to perk up demand by cutting the interest rate to a historic low.
Factory output rises 1.7 pc in February
Similarly, the government said the factory output jumped 1.7 per cent in February due to rise in the mining sector and power generation, adding that the manufacturing sector recorded a growth of 0.8 per cent.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had declined 3.2 per cent in February last year.
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“For the month of February 2022, the Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with base 2011-12 stands at 132.1. The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of February 2022 stand at 123.2, 130.8 and 160.8 respectively,” the government said.
“As per Use-based classification, the indices stand at 130.8 for Primary Goods, 94.3 for Capital Goods, 144.0 for Intermediate Goods and 153.0 for Infrastructure/ Construction Goods for the month of February 2022. Further, the indices for Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables stand at 114.7 and 139.5 respectively for the month February 2022,” it added.
