Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ashwini Kumar Choubey has said that retail food inflation, measured by the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) brought out by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), has declined from 8.60 percent in September 2022 to 5.95 per cent in February 2023.
Union Minister also noted that the rate of inflation for pulses in February 2023 was 4.09% which is lower than CFPI. The Department of Consumer Affairs monitors the retail and wholesale prices of essential food commodities reported on daily basis by State Food and Civil Supply Departments from 482 price reporting centres across the country.
Minister also said that prices of food commodities are affected by diverse factors such as production, seasonality in crop arrivals, supply chain logistics, adverse weather conditions etc. The daily report of prices and indicative price trends are duly analysed for appropriate intervention for release of stocks from the buffer, export-import policy etc.
