India’s retail inflation at highest in 8 years

India’s retail inflation at highest in 8 years

Team Ambitiousbaba are here with a Current Affairs Special Series. In this series, candidates will be introduced to current affairs topics daily, which will not only improve their general awareness but also will ensure that the candidates do not lack in any current affairs topic. Today’s Current Affairs topic is “India’s retail inflation at highest in 8 years”

Government’s data released yester day which has showed India’s retail inflation soared up to 7.79 per cent in April. This high retail inflation is largely happened due to increase fuel and food prices. This time the consumer price-based inflation counted on well above Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) upper tolerance limit for the fourth consecutive month.

In April, the CPI inflation elaborated at its highest pace in eight years. The previous high was registered at 8.33 per cent in May 2014.

April’s mark was higher than 6.95 per cent in March and 4.23 per cent a year ago.

Inflation in the food basket mounted to 8.38 per cent in April from 7.68 per cent in the previous month.

Food inflation which has share of nearly half the consumer price index (CPI) basket was reached a multi-month high in April and can remain high due to higher vegetable and cooking oil prices globally.

The rate of pace in price of ‘fuel and light’ category in the retail inflation basket accelerated to 10.80 per cent in April this year from 7.52 per cent in the preceding month.

Reason behind inflation in Oil and fats:

In the ‘oils and fats’ category, inflation remained at an elevated level of 17.28 per cent in April as Ukraine is one of the major sunflower oil producers in the world.

India imports a major portion of the commodity from the war- sacked country.

Ukraine is also a significant supplier of fertiliser to India.

Vegetables showed an inflation print of 15.41 per cent during the month as against 11.64 per cent in March.

RBI’s before action:

RBI mainly believes the retail inflation figure while arriving at its bi-monthly policy decision.

The Reserve Bank has been prescribed by the Centre to keep the retail inflation between 2 per cent to 6 per cent.

The elevated price outlook forced RBI to increase its repo rate for the first time in four years, lifting it by 40 basis points (bps) to 4.40 per cent in an off-cycle meeting earlier this month. Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends money to commercial banks.

On the global front, U.S. Federal Reserve also hiked its interest rate by 50 bps, the highest in 22 years.

Central banks have also showed future rate hikes to bring down surging inflation.

Another set of government data carried that the factory output rose 1.9 per cent in March this year.

Question & Answer:

Q1. India’s retail inflation soared up to what percent in April?

Ans. 7.79%

Q2. Retail inflation in April 2022 is highest since which period of time?

Ans. In last 8 years

Q3. What is the rate of inflation in category of ‘fuel and light’?

Ans. 10.80%

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