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With an uptick in food prices, India’s retail inflation rose to a three-month high of 4.91 per cent in November 2021. The annual CPI inflation was 4.48 per cent in October 2021. Though, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation for November is lower than 6.93 per cent in November 2020 and within the 4+/-2 per cent target range of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The inflation had eased from 5.3 per cent in August to 4.35 per cent in September and then moved up to 4.48 per cent in October.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its data has showed that the Rural CPI (General) in November 2021 stood at 4.29 per cent as against 4.07 per cent in October. The Urban CPI (General) stood at 5.54 per cent in November as against 5.04 per cent in October. The index value for Rural, Urban and Combined CPI (General) stood at 167.6, 165.6 and 166.7, respectively, in November 2021.

As per the data released by the NSO, inflation in the food basket was 1.87 per cent in November compared to 0.85 per cent a month earlier. However, it was significantly down from 9.5 per cent in November 2020. Fuel and light inflation stood at 13.4 per cent in November as against 14.4 per cent a month ago, while vegetables inflation was recorded at -13.6 per cent as against -19.4 per cent a month ago. Clothing and footwear inflation was at 7.9 per cent in November compared with 7.5 per cent a month ago, while transport and communication inflation was at 10.02 per cent as against 10.9 per cent in October.

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 November 2021, NSO collected prices from 99.7% villages and 98.4% urban Markets while the Market-wise prices reported therein were 89.4% for rural and 92.8% for urban.