New Delhi: The inflation across categories have continued unabated for the past several months.
The inflation rate based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased to 7% in August. It had gone down to 6.71 % in July. The rate had fallen below 7 % in July after three months. Inflation hit the highest point in 8 months in April at 7.79 %.
For the past eight months, the rate has been above the Reserve Bank’s tolerance band of 6 %. The RBI’s target is to bring it close to 4 %. The current assessment is that the inflation rate will remain high until December. Since the inflation rate continues to show an upward trend, a meeting of the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), to be held on September 28 to 30, is expected to hike the interest rates again.
The rise in the prices of food items has mainly been reflected in the August statistics. The inflation related to food articles went up to 7.62 % in August from 6.69 % in July.
Kerala: Marginal increase in the rate
In Kerala, the inflation rate increased to 5.73 % in August. Though Kerala is among the states that witness the lowest inflation rate in the country, this is the highest rate that the state recorded in the last one year. In July and June, this was 5.36 % and 5.41 % respectively, and in May, it was 4.82 %. In town areas, the price rise was 5.77 %, and in villages, it was 5.71 %.
Industrial production rate at 2.4 %
Meanwhile, India’s Industrial production rate in July touched a four-month low of 2.4 percent. The highest production rate recorded before this was in August 2021 at 13 %. The lowest was in March at 2.2 %. The Industrial production rate declined this time mainly on account of the poor show by the manufacturing, mining, and power sectors. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in April and May was 6.7 % and 19.6 % respectively.
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