June retail inflation

Retail inflation in India firmed up in June and came in at above the upper tolerance band of 6% set by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). The CPI inflation stood at 6.09% in June, up from 5.84% in March, which was the last official headline inflation number released by the Statistics Department. The rise in CPI reading came despite a fall in food inflation, which cooled to a nine-month low of 7.87% in June from 9.2% in May.

Retail Inflation Rate:

• An increase or fall in the value of selected goods or services over a given period of time is called inflation.
• When expressed in percentage as inflation, it is called inflation rate or retail inflation rate.
• In simple words, it shows the speed of price fluctuations.

Reasons for increasing retail inflation rate:

• The rise in retail inflation rate has been observed due to increase in prices of food items.
• Retail inflation has increased mainly due to increase in prices of pulses and other food products, which increased by 16.68 percent in June.
• 22% growth has been observed on meat and fish products, 12.27% increase on oil and fat products and 11.74% increase in prices of spices.

UPSC