Telangana registered the highest year-on-year inflation rate in the country in October at 8.82 per cent and Andhra Pradesh stood second at 7.93 per cent, while Delhi enjoyed the lowest inflation rate at 2.99 percent. The people of Himachal Pradesh experienced the second-lowest inflation rate at 4.42 per cent after Delhi followed by Punjab at 4.52 per cent, according to government data. The retail inflation or consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation came down to 6.77 per cent in October 2022 from 7.41 per cent in September 2022.
In response to the inflation data, Rajani Sinha, Chief Economist at CARE Ratings (a leading credit rating agency) told IANS: "Retail inflation decreased to 6.8 percent, a three-month low, broadly in line with what we had anticipated. A solid base is primarily in charge of the moderation. Food was the main factor in the acceleration of the sequential price momentum."According to her, the CPI core was high and remained constant at 6.2%, reflecting ongoing pressures brought on by demand.
She further stated that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might adopt a less hawkish stance at its upcoming policy meeting in December and opt for a 35-bps rate increase. However, it is important to pay close attention to how fluctuations in food inflation and impact of exchange rates affect imported inflation.
"Factoring the upside risk from food inflation, we have revised upwards our inflation forecast for FY23 to 6.8 per cent (earlier 6.5 per cent). We expect inflation to average 6.6 per cent in the third quarter and 6.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of this fiscal. CPI inflation could fall below 6 per cent only by the end of this fiscal" Sinha added.
With IANS inputs