Retail inflation eases to 7.04% in May on softening food, fuel prices
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Retail inflation or Consumer Price Index (CPI) eased to 7.04 per cent in May, mainly on account of softening food and fuel prices as the government as well as the RBI stepped in to control spiralling price rise by way of duty cuts and repo rate hike. However, the inflation print stayed above the Reserve Bank’s upper tolerance level of 6 per cent for the fifth month in a row. The CPI was 7.79 per cent in April. In the year-ago month of May 2021, retail inflation stood at 6.3 per cent. Inflation in the food basket in May 2022 was at 7.97 per cent, down from 8.31 per cent in the previous month. The food basket has weightage of 39.06 per cent in the overall Consumer Price Index.
The National Statistical Office (NSO) under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its data has showed that the Rural CPI (General) in May 2022 stood at 7.01 per cent as against 8.38 per cent in April. The Urban CPI (General) stood at 7.08 per cent in May as against 7.09 per cent in April. The index value for Rural, Urban and Combined CPI (General) stood at 172.4, 170.8 and 171.7 respectively, in May 2022.
As per the data, the inflation print in the 'cereals and products' segment eased to 5.33 percent in May as against 5.96 percent in the preceding month, while that for 'oil and fats' softened to 13.26 percent from 17.28 percent. The rate of price rise for fruits slowed to 2.33 percent from 4.99 percent. However, vegetable prices accelerated 18.26 percent as against 15.41 percent in April. Among others, the prices of eggs and 'pulses and products' showed deceleration, with negative inflation prints of (-)4.64 percent and (-)0.42 percent, respectively. In the 'fuel and light' category, inflation during the month softened a tad at 9.54 percent from 10.80 percent in April.
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 May 2022, NSO collected prices from 99.8% villages and 98.3% urban Markets while the Market-wise prices reported therein were 90.0% for rural and 93.1% for urban.
