India’s CPI-inflation declines to 10.39% in March

12 Apr 2013 Evaluate

In a big relief to policy-makers, annual rate of inflation, based on the consumer prices index (CPI), after rising for fifth consecutive month, declined to 10.39% in March as against 10.91% seen in the previous month. However, inflation continued to remain in double digit terrain for the fourth consecutive month in March. The decline was mainly seen in prices of vegetables and protein based items.

As per the data, provisional annual inflation rate based on all India general CPI (Combined) for March 2013 on point to point basis stood at 10.39% as compared to 10.91% final inflation number for February 2013. Further, CPI numbers for rural, urban and combined were at 128.2, 126.5 and 127.5 respectively. The corresponding inflation rates for rural and urban areas for March came in at 10.33% and 10.38% respectively.  While final inflation rates for rural and urban for the month of February were revised at 11.01% and 10.84% respectively.

Among all the constituents that make the CPI, cereals recorded the highest inflation of 17.55% in March. However, the prices in the vegetables basket eased to 12.16% in March from the 21.29% in February. While, inflation in pulses stood at 11.38% and in sugar at 11.65% on an annual basis. Further, price rise in the clothing and footwear segment stood at 10.64% for the reporting month.

India has the highest retail inflation among the BRICS group of emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa -- and is way above the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s comfort level. The central bank will take into account the double digit retail inflation and slowdown in factory output while formulating its annual monetary policy, which is scheduled on May 3.   

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