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Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the Centre has taken many proactive steps in the past few years to control retail prices of food items, and that the government would keep inflation under control while ensuring the country's economic growth.

He said ‘Today, India has become the fastest growing large economy. Going forward, we will keep inflation under check and also ensure economic growth.’ Retail inflation inched up to a three-month high of 5.55% in November, driven by higher food prices. Retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was at 4.87% in October. Inflation had been declining since August, when it touched 6.83%.

On the steps taken by the Central government, he highlighted that 140 new price monitoring centres had been set up to keep a close watch on wholesale and retail prices of essential commodities. In the last two years, he said, when the world had witnessed very high inflation, especially in food items, India had been able to control inflation through proactive fiscal and monetary policies.