Retail inflation eases to 3.34% in March as food prices continued to soften

15 Apr 2025 Evaluate

India's retail inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), eased to 3.34 per cent in the month of March 2025, as food prices continued to soften. It is the lowest year-on-year inflation after August 2019. CPI inflation had stood at 3.61 per cent in February 2025 and 4.85 per cent in March 2024. The CPI-based inflation remains comfortably within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) medium-term target of 4 per cent and well inside the 2-6 per cent tolerance band. The March month is the second straight month that inflation has stayed under the RBI’s 4 per cent medium-term target. Besides, the Food inflation or the All India Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) in March 2025 stood at 2.69 per cent, lower compared to 3.75 per cent in February 2025. It is also lower as compared to 8.52 per cent in March 2024. It is the lowest level since November 2021.

The NSO, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in its data has showed that Rural CPI (General) in March 2025 stood at 3.25 per cent over 3.79 per cent in February 2025. The Urban CPI (General) stood at 3.43 per cent in March as against 3.32 per cent in February. The index value for Rural, Urban and Combined CPI (General) stood at 193.9, 189.9 and 192.0 respectively, in March 2025. The price data are collected from selected 1114 urban Markets and 1181 villages covering all States/UTs through personal visits by field staff of Field Operations Division of NSO, MoSPI on a weekly roster. During the month of March, 2025, NSO collected prices from 100% villages and 98.6% urban markets while the market-wise prices reported therein were 89.8% for rural and 92.6% for urban.

Besides, Food and beverage inflation eased to 2.88 per cent in March from 3.84 per cent in February, as vegetable prices further declined to (-) 7.04 per cent from (-) 1.07 in the prior month. Also, inflation in meat and fish came down to 0.32 per cent from 2.11 per cent in preceding month. Inflation for cereals stood at 5.93 per cent against a 6.1 percent increase in February. Inflation in pulses remained in deflationary territory at (-) 2.73 per cent compared to (-) 0.35 per cent last month. The inflation rate for milk and milk products was 2.56 per cent, slightly lower as compared to 2.68 per cent in the previous month. Clothing and footwear inflation remained almost stable at 2.62 per cent from 2.68 per cent in the previous month, while Housing inflation inched up to 3.03 per cent from 2.91 per cent in the prior month. Fuel and light inflation turned positive at 1.48 per cent, reversing a deflation of 1.33 per cent in February.


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