New Delhi: India’s retail inflation has jumped to 7.79 per cent in April, government data has revealed.
It has been driven up due to steeper edible oil and fuel prices, analysts said. It has remained above the tolerance limit of the Reserve Bank of India for the fourth month in a row.
The consumer price index inflation figure stood at 6.95 per cent last month, the highest since September 2014.
The consumer food price index inflation was at 8.38 per cent in April.
On 4 May, the Reserve Bank increased the benchmark lending rate by 40 basis points (bps) to 4.40 per cent in a bid to contain inflation, which has remained above the target zone of 6 per cent for the last three months.
While the inflation remained above the targeted 6 per cent since January, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said the inflation print in April was likely to be high.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said last Saturday that RBI’s decision to hike key policy interest rates was a part of the synchronised event by central banks globally.
Thursday’s figures were released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The data was collected from 1114 urban markets and 1181 villages covering all states and Union Territories on a weekly basis, the government said.
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