“Of Course, The Price Burden Is On The Common Man,” Trying To Relieve Stress: Nirmala Sitharaman

Important quotes on the Indian economy by Nirmala Sitharaman

India’s inflation has risen sharply above the tolerance band, but it is not that bad, said Nirmala Sitharaman at an event organized by Atlantic Council in Washington on Tuesday evening.

“There are global challenges even today whether it is crude prices…whether it is the prices of all commodities which have gone skyrocketing. This will have an impact on all economies,” said Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, referring to the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war.

She said, “India’s inflation was about 6.9% last month. Our tolerance band is only 4% with +/- 2%. We have breached 6%, but we have not really breached it so badly.”

“Of course, the price burden is on the common man. We are trying to relieve him of that stress. But notwithstanding the challenges, we are now able to stand up and move forward with system reforms,” Ms Sitharaman added.

Indeed, both the consumer-price-based and the wholesale price-based measures of inflation jumped in March.

The retail inflation rose sharply to near 7 per cent and above the upper-end of the Reserve Bank of India’s 2 per cent to 6 per cent target band for the third straight month.

And that data does not yet reflect the full impact of the pass-through of the cumulative Rs 10 hike in retail fuel prices restarted on March 22.

Oil retailers have kept petrol and diesel rates steady for the 14th straight day on Wednesday. 

But the latest data showed the Indian crude oil basket price rose again, jumping over 10 per cent between April 19 and April 11, 2020, suggesting a hike in pump prices is coming soon.