Retail inflation rises to 1.33% in December, but remains below RBI’s medium-term target

12 Jan 2026 Evaluate

India's retail inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose by 62 basis points to 1.33% (Provisional) in the month of December 2025, as compared to 0.71% in November 2025. Earlier, in December 2024, the inflation was 5.22%. The increase in headline inflation and food inflation during the month of December, 2025 is mainly attributed to increase in inflation of Personal care and effects, Vegetables, Meat and fish, Egg, Spices and Pulses and Products. However, the December month inflation remained below the Reserve Bank of India’s medium-term target of 4%. Besides, food inflation stood at (-) 2.71% in December 2025 over (-) 3.91% in November 2025, an increase of 120 basis points. Earlier, food inflation was 8.39% in December 2024.

The NSO, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) in its provisional data has showed that Rural CPI (General) in December 2025 stood at 0.76% over 0.10% in November 2025. The Urban CPI (General) stood at 2.03% in December as compared to 1.40% in November. The index value for Rural, Urban and Combined CPI (General) stood at 199.9, 195.9 and 198.0 respectively, in December 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 December, 2025, NSO collected prices from 100% villages and 98.56% urban markets while the market-wise prices reported therein were 89.36% for rural and 92.71% for urban.

The data showed that inflation in Food and beverage stood at (-) 1.85% in December 2025 as compared to (-) 2.78% in November 2025, with prices of vegetable coming at (-) 18.47% in the reporting month over (-) 22.20% in the previous month. Inflation in pulses and products remained in deflationary territory at (-) 15.09% in December over (-) 15.86% in November. Inflation in meat and fish jumped to 5.12% in December from 2.50% in preceding month. The inflation rate for milk and products inched up to 2.56% in December from 2.45% in November. Inflation for egg rose to 4.76% in December from 3.77% in November. 

Inflation in Personal care and effects segment surged to 28.07% in the month of December 2025 as compared to 24.04% in November 2025. However, clothing and footwear inflation for the month of December came down to 1.44% in December from 1.49% in November, while Housing inflation came down slightly at 2.86% in the reporting month from 2.95% in the prior month. Further, inflation for Education segment fell to 3.32% in the month under review as compared to 3.38% in the November. Also, inflation for health segment came down to 3.43% in December from 3.60% in November. Transport & communication inflation rate for the month of December stood 0.76% compared to 0.88% for November 2025.

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