India’s retail inflation eases to 7-month low of 3.6 per cent in February
The food inflation in February has come down to the lowest level since May 2023 and is 222 basis points lower in comparison to January, according to the official statement.
The wholesale inflation in February quickened to 2.38 per cent on an annual basis, as against 2.31 per cent in January, government data showed on Monday.
“Positive rate of inflation in February 2025 is primarily due to increase in prices of manufacture of food products, food articles, other manufacturing, non-food articles and manufacture of textiles etc,” according to a Commerce ministry statement.
Advertisement
Further, the month-over-month change in WPI for February 2025 stood at 0.06 per cent as compared to January 2025.
Advertisement
The index for Fuel & Power increased by 2.12 per cent to 153.8 (provisional) in February from 150.6 (provisional) for January.
The price of electricity (4.28 per cent ) and mineral oils (1.87 per cent ) increased in February as compared to January. Notably, the price of coal remained the same as that in the previous month.
The Food Index consisting of ‘food articles’ from the primary articles group and ‘food product’ from the manufactured products group, decreased from 191.4 in January to 189.0 in February.
The annual rate of inflation based on the WPI Food Index decreased from 7.47 per cent in January to 5.94 per cent in February, the data said.
The government has also recently released the CPI-based retail inflation for February, saying it slipped to 3.61 per cent amid a decline in the rate of price rise in vegetables and protein-rich items.
The consumer price index-based retail inflation was at 4.26 per cent in January and 5.09 per cent in February 2024.
There is a decline of 65 basis points in the headline inflation of February in comparison to January, which is the lowest year-on-year inflation after July 2024.
Advertisement
